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__E_RIGHI DEPOSm 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



A BOOK OF SUGGESTIVE THOUGHTS FOR 

EACH DAY THROUGH THE YEAR 

FROM THE WRITINGS OF 



RALPH WALDO TRINE 

Author of "The Winning of the Best," "The Higher 

Powers of Mind and Spirit," "In Tune 

with the Infinite," etc. 




NEW YORK 

DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 

1919 



-$$ 






Copyright, 1919 
By RALPH WALDO TRINE 



NOV 18 1919 



©CI.A535750 

I 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

January First 

ACH morning is a fresh beginning. 
We are, as it were, just beginning 
life. We have it entirely in our 
own hands. And when the morn- 
ing with its fresh beginning comes, all yester- 
days should be yesterdays, with which we 
have nothing to do. Sufficient is it to know 
that the way we lived our yesterday has de- 
termined for us our today. And, again, 
when the morning with its fresh beginning 
comes, all tomorrows should be tomorrows, 
with which we have nothing to do. Sufficient 
to know that the way we live our today deter- 
mines our tomorrow. 

Simply the first hour of this new day, with 
all its richness and glory, with all its sublime 
and eternity-determining possibilities, and 
each succeeding hour as it comes — but not be- 
fore it comes. This is the secret of character 
building. 



January Second 




AITH and hope and courage are 
great producers. We cannot fail 
if we live always in the brave and 
cheerful attitude of mind and heart 
— he alone fails who gives up and lies down. 

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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 
January Third 

ACH is building his own world. 
We build both from within and we 
attract from without. Thought is 
the force with which we build — 
for thoughts are forces — like builds like and 
like attracts like. 

Thoughts of strength build strength from 
within and attract it from without. Thoughts 
of weakness actualize weakness from within 
and attract it from without. Courage begets 
strength; fear begets weakness. 

Our prevailing thought forces determine 
likewise the mental atmosphere we create 
around us, and all who come within its influ- 
ence are affected in one way or another, ac- 
cording to the quality of that atmosphere. 




January Fourth 

N life the great secret of all ad- 
vancement and attainment is to set 
the face in the right direction and 
then simply to travel on, unmind- 
ful of even frequent lapses by the way. He 
who knows the power of the forward look, 
realizes that unforeseen helps will spring up 
all along the way for him who makes the start, 
and who works true to the pattern. 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



January Fifth 

HERE is no quality that exerts more 
good and that is of greater service 
to all mankind during the course 
of the ordinary life, than the mind 
and the heart that goes out in an all-embracing 
love for all, that is the generator and the cir- 
culator of a genuine, hearty, wholesome sym- 
pathy and courage and good cheer, that is not 
disturbed or upset by the passing occurrence 
little or great, but that is serene, tranquil, and 
conquering to the end; that is looking for the 
best, that is finding the best, and that is in- 
spiring the best in all. 

There is, moreover, no quality that when 
genuine brings such rich returns to its pos- 
sessor by virtue of the thoughts and the feel- 
ings that it inspires and calls forth from 
others, and that come back laden with their 
peaceful, stimulating, healthful influences for 
him. 



January Sixth 

OURAGE is a mental power that 

makes for success; fear on the 

other hand has concealed within 

it a force that neutralizes normal, 

healthy action, and fear therefore induces 

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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

failure. Before the man or the woman of 
positive, commanding thought — of courage 
— doors open, difficulties vanish, and ideas 
and ideals are gradually transformed into 
accomplishment and achievement. 



January Seventh 

E can't have an expansive stretch of 
healthy life without an expansive 
sweep of the mind. Littleness of 
mind, jealousy, envy, the tendency 
to gossip, looking for the faults rather than 
for the good traits in others, all have their ad- 
verse, stultifying, dwarfing influences. 





January Eighth 

APPINESS is the natural and the 
normal; it is one of the concom- 
itants of righteousness. Right- 
eousness in its last analysis is liv- 
ing in right relations with the laws of the uni- 
verse, and with the laws of our own being. 
If we are making even a decent effort to know 
and to observe these laws, happiness in the 
main will be our portion. 

No clear thinking or clear seeing man or 

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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

woman can be an apostle of despair. No life 
at whatever age, or under whatever circum- 
stances, can fail to do wisely in realizing that 
the glories of the sunrise or the sunset colours 
may be just as brilliant and just as beautiful 
for them, as they have ever been. 

The better we understand life, the more we 
come to realize that happiness is a duty. 



January Ninth 




E are on the way from the imper- 
fect to the perfect; some day, in 
this life or some other, we shall 
reach our destiny. It is as much 
the part of folly to waste time and cripple 
our forces in vain, unproductive regrets in 
regard to the occurrences of the past as it is 
to cripple our forces through fears and fore- 
bodings for the future. 

There is no experience in any life which 
if rightly recognized, rightly turned and 
thereby wisely used, cannot be made of value; 
many times things thus turned and used can 
be made sources of inestimable gain; ofttimes 
they become veritable blessings in disguise. 

-C 5 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




January Tenth 

WEETNESS of nature, simplicity 
in manners and conduct, humility 
without self-abasement, give the 
truly kingly quality to men, the 
queenly to women, the winning to children, 
whatever the rank or the station may be. The 
life dominated by this characteristic, or rather 
these closely allied characteristics, is a nat- 
ural well-spring of joy to itself and sheds a 
continual benediction upon all who come 
within the scope of its influence. It makes 
for a life of great beauty in itself, and it im- 
parts courage and hope and buoyancy to all 
others. 




January Eleventh 

HE grander natures and the more 
thoughtful are always looking for 
and in conversation dwelling on the 
better things in others. It is the 
rule with but few, if any exceptions, that the 
more noble and worthy and thoughtful the 
nature, the more it is continually looking for 
the best there is to be found in every life. 
Instead of judging or condemning, or acquir- 
ing the habit that eventually leads to this, it 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

is looking more closely to and giving its time 
to living more worthily itself. 

It is in this way continually unfolding and 
expanding in beauty and in power; it is find- 
ing an ever-increasing happiness by the ad- 
miration and the love that such a life is al- 
ways, even though all unconsciously, calling 
to itself from all sources. It is the life that 
pays by many fold. 



January Twelfth 

OME time, even but a brief period, 
spent during the course of each day 
out in the open, is a prime neces- 
sity in keeping oneself up to par. 
One reason that we are not so uniformly 
healthy as we might and should be, is that our 
modern life has become so artificial. We 
live too continually behind closed walls, in 
closed houses, we get too far away from 
simple, though body-building and sustaining 
foods, we do not breathe fully and deeply 
enough an abundance of good fresh air. 
These, if not always the direct causes of de- 
pleted nerve force and even nervous exhaus- 
tion and breakdowns, are nevertheless prime 
contributory agencies. 

God's great out-of-doors is ever calling, and 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

if we do not heed its call it will send in to us 
bills that will call for heavy and sometimes 
frightful settlements. We need at times to 
take up again the play-life of our childhood. 
After all we are all merely grown-up children. 
To deceive ourselves with the idea that we are 
something totally different means, many times, 
the paying of very costly bills. 



January Thirteenth 

is the man or woman of faith, 
and hence of courage, who is the 
master of circumstances, and who 
makes his or her power felt in the 
world. It is the man or the woman who lacks 
faith and who as a consequence is weakened 
and crippled by fears and forebodings, who 
is the creature of all passing occurrences. 




January Fourteenth 

ISE is the one who, as the days 
speed onward, realizes the impor- 
tance of always keeping his mental 
poise, and who does not allow him- 
self in the face of any circumstance to get, as 
we say "all balled up." It is then that 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

hindrance arises in connection with the very 
thing we are endeavouring to accomplish. It 
is then that the "little demons" seem to creep 
in and play havoc with our mental and nervous 
force and energy, which inevitably in turn 
registers itself illy in our bodies. This state 
then becomes a hindrance to the mental poise 
and to the effective efforts of those about us. 
Things we can mend we should mend. 
Things that we can't help we should accept 
with good grace and then quickly forget. 

"It is no use to grumble and complain; 

It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice. 
When God sorts out the weather and sends rain — 

Why, rain's my choice." 

So sang James Whitcomb Riley, and into 
the one brief stanza he packed practically half 
the philosophy of life. 



January Fifteenth 

HERE is a powerful influence that 
resolves itself into a sendee for 
all in each individual strong, pure 
and noble life. 




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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

January Sixteenth 

HE way we approach the daily 
problems of life will in practically 
every case determine their out- 
come. We will then inoculate our 
minds with the germs of happiness; it is just 
as easy, when we get the habit, as to have them 
inoculated with the germs of fear or worry 
or discontent — and the results are always bet- 
ter. Why then will we think of those things 
that are unpleasant? As it will do us no 
good in any way, why then cripple our 
thoughts and thereby our energies when by 
it there is nothing to be gained, but on the 
contrary everything to be lost? 




January Seventeenth 

HERE is a duty of bravery the 
same as there is a bravery many 
times in duty. It's the duty and 
it should be the pleasure of each 
while here to think bravely and to live bravely 
straight through to the end. It's the manly 
and the womanly thing to do — and besides it 
pays. To take captive the best things in life 
we must proceed always through the chan- 
nel of brave, intrepid thought. 
-C 10 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

It was Maeterlinck who said: "The hap- 
piest man is he who best understands his hap- 
piness, and he who understands it best is he 
who knows profoundly that his happiness is 
only divided from sorrow by a lofty, unweary- 
ing, humane and courageous view of life." 



January Eighteenth 

IFE and its manifold possibilities 
of unfoldment and avenues of en- 
joyment — life and the things that 
pertain to it — is an infinitely 
greater thing than the mere accessories of life. 




January Nineteenth 




EAR and lack of faith go hand in 
hand. The one is born of the 
other. I do not believe one can 
be a Christian who lives in the 
slavery, or even to any appreciable degree un- 
der the influence of fear or even of worry. 
Why? Jesus taught the All-ness of God. If 
one then truly follow Him he can find no room 
for either fear or worry. God is imminent as 
well as transcendent. I do not believe that 
any one can be a real follower of any religion, 
< 11 3- 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

who allows these forces to find a place in his 
or her life. 

The great underlying principle, indeed the 
sum and substance of all religion is — The con- 
sciousness of God in the soul of man. If we 
actually live in this consciousness, if we open 
ourselves so that this Divine guidance and 
power can work in and through us, what place 
is there for either fear or worry? Only good 
can come to such a life. Why bother our- 
selves then about those things that cannot 
come? 



January Twentieth 

ANY a man, many a woman, has 
had a good round half dozen years 
or even more clipped from his or 
her life in moping, in vain and ab- 
solutely foolish regrets for this or that occur- 
rence or series of occurrences in the past, 
thereby blocking initiative and neutralizing 
powers that rightly used would have led speed- 
ily to actualizing the attainment of the condi- 
tions desired. 



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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

January Twenty-first 




T is well for one not to try to do 
too much each day. To do what 
one can with ease, and to let the 
rest go without qualms or misgiv- 
ings of any type will brighten many days in 
many lives. Are there too many social du- 
ties? Then cut some of them off. It will 
be found just as well otherwise. To become 
a slave to one's engagements and to allow one- 
self to fall below par, mentally and physically 
thereby, can result in no real benefit to any- 
body. The complexing element thrown into 
one's life in this way, is just as destructive to 
real growth, and to happiness and satisfac- 
tion, as is the introduction of too many ma- 
terial things in life. 




January Twenty-second 

OPE and courage and sympathy and 
trust are great producers, and they 
are great factors in a man's doing 
his duty, as well as his having the 



joy of achievement. 



< 13 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

January Twenty-third 

ANY times the struggles are greater 
than we can ever know. We need 
more gentleness and sympathy and 
compassion in our common human 
life. Then we will neither blame nor con- 
demn. Instead of blaming or condemning 
we will sympathize. 

"Comfort one another. 
For the way is often dreary 
And the feet are often weary, 

And the heart is very sad. 
There is a heavy burden bearing, 
When it seems that none are caring, 

And we half forget that ever we were glad. 

"Comfort one another 
With the hand-clasp close and tender, 
With the sweetness love can render, 

And the looks of friendly eyes. 
Do not wait with grace unspoken, 
While life's daily bread is broken — 

Gentle speech is oft like manna from the skies." 

And then when we fully realize the fact that 
selfishness is at the root of all error, sin, and 
crime, and that ignorance is the basis of all 
selfishness, with what charity we come to look 
upon the acts of all. It is the ignorant man 
who seeks his own ends at the expense of the 
greater whole. It is the ignorant man, there- 
fore, who is the selfish man. 
-C 14 > 






THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

January Twenty-fourth 

HE wise one is he who when he 
stumbles and falls — even flat — 
gives time enough to recognize the 
cause, who quickly learns his les- 
son, and who then picks himself up and goes 
on without wasting even a moment in regret. 




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January Twenty-fifth 

N a sense love is everything. It is 
the key to life, and its influences 
are those that move the world. 
Live only in the thought of love 
for all and you will draw love to you from all. 
Live in the thought of malice or hatred, and 
malice and hatred will come back to you. 

"For evil poisons; malice shafts 

Like boomerangs return, 
Inflicting wounds that will not heal 

While rage and anger burn." 

Every thought you entertain is a force that 
goes out, and every thought comes back laden 
with its kind. This is an immutable law. 
Every thought you entertain has moreover a 
direct effect upon your body. Love and its 
kindred emotions are the normal and the 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

natural, those in accordance with the eternal 
order of the universe, for "God is love." 
These have a life-giving, health-engendering 
influence upon your body, besides beautifying 
your countenance, enriching your voice, and 
making you ever more attractive in every way. 
And as it is true that in the degree that you 
hold thoughts of love for all, you call 
the same from them in return, and as these 
have a direct effect upon your mind, and 
through your mind upon your body, it is as so 
much life force added to your own from with- 
out. You are then continually building this 
into both your mental and your physical life, 
and so your life is enriched by its influence. 



January Twenty-sixth 

IFE is not so complex if we do not 
persist in making it so. We need 
faith; we need to be brave; we 
need chronically to keep the corners 




of the mouth turned up and not down. And 
after all it is only a step at a time. 



< 16 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

January Twenty -seventh 




RDINARILY we find in people the 
qualities we are mostly looking for, 
or the qualities that our own pre- 
vailing characteristics call forth. 
The larger the nature, the less critical and 
cynical it is, the more it is given to looking for 
the best and the highest in others, and the less, 
therefore, is it given to gossip. 




January Twenty-eighth 

|IVE the body the nourishment, the 
exercise, the fresh air, the sunlight 
it requires, keep it clean, and then 
think of it as little as possible. 
In your thoughts and in your conversation 
never dwell upon the negative side. Don't 
talk of sickness and disease. By talking of 
these you do yourself harm and you do harm 
to those who listen to you. Talk of those 
things that will make people the better for 
listening to you. Thus you will infect them 
with health and strength and not with weak- 
ness and disease. 

To dwell upon the negative side is always 
destructive. This is true of the body the 
same as it is true of all other things. 
-C 17 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



January Twenty-ninth 

MAN who is not right with his fel- 
low-men is not right and cannot be 
right with God. This is coming 
to be the clear-cut realization of all 
progressive religious thought today. Since 
men are free from the trammels of an ener- 
vating dogma that through fear made them 
seek, or rather that made them contented with 
religion as primarily a system of rewards and 
punishments, they are now awakening to the 
fact that the logical carrying out of Jesus' 
teaching of the Kingdom is the establishing 
here on this earth of an order of life and hence 
of a society where greater love and co-opera- 
tion and justice prevail. Our rapidly grow- 
ing present-day conception of Christianity 
makes it not world-renouncing, but world-af- 
firming. 

This modern conception of the function of a 
true and vital Christianity makes it the task 
of the immediate future to apply Christianity 
to trade, to commerce, to labour relations, to 
all social relations, to international relations. 



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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




January Thirtieth 

E who has the quest of the good 
in his heart relates himself there- 
by with all the higher forces in 
the universe and they aid him at 
every turn. 

If we have faith, if we have patience and 
perseverance, there is no condition, no ex- 
perience that rightly viewed and rightly 
turned and used will not bring us stores of 
good. 



January Thirty-first 




ONTAINING a fundamental truth 
deeper perhaps than we realize, 
are these words of that gifted seer, 
Emanuel Swedenborg: "There is 
only one Fountain of Life, and the life of 
man is a stream therefrom, which if it were 
not continually replenished from its source 
would instantly cease to flow." And likewise 
these: "Those who think in the light of in- 
terior reason can see that all things are con- 
nected by intermediate links with the First 
Cause, and that whatever is not maintained in 
that connection must cease to exist." 

There is a mystic force that transcends any 
powers of the intellect or of the body, that be- 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

comes manifest and operative in the life of 
man when this God-consciousness becomes 
awakened and permeates his entire being. 



February First 

OD give us more of the people who 
set about definitely and actively to 
cultivate the habit of happiness, 
people the corners of whose mouths 
are turned chronically up not down, people 
who are looking for, inspiring and calling 
forth the best from all. 





February Second 

F we believe ourselves subject to 
weakness, decay, infirmity, when 
we should be "whole," the subcon- 
scious mind seizes upon the pat- 
tern that is sent it and builds cell structure ac- 
cordingly. This is one great reason why one 
who is, as we say, chronically thinking and 
talking of his ailments and symptoms, who is 
complaining and fearing, is never well. 

To see one's self, to believe, and therefore 
to picture one's self in mind as strong, healthy, 
active, well, is to furnish a pattern, is to give 
-C 20 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

suggestion and therefore direction to the sub- 
conscious so that it will build cell tissue hav- 
ing the stamp and the force of healthy, vital, 
active life, which in turn means abounding 
health and strength. Whatever is thus pic- 
tured in the mind and lived in, the Life Force 
will produce. 



February Third 

HERE has been probably no truer 
statement ever given utterance to in 
the world's history, and one con- 
taining greater hope or strength for 
each individual life that places itself suffi- 
ciently in position fully to know its truth than : 
"Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose 
mind is stayed on Thee." The Law will never 
fail him who trusts himself fully to It. It is 
the half-hearted, fearing, vacillating trusting 
that always has and that always will bring un- 
satisfactory results. 




-C 21 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 
February Fourth 

JHE prophet of old proclaimed a 
wonderful chemistry of life when 
he said: "A merry heart doeth 
good like a medicine. 9 ' And the 
great beauty of it is that it doeth good not only 
for the self, but for the companion, the friend 
and the neighbour. 




February Fifth 




E need continually to be on the 
lookout that we keep ourselves up 
to par, so to speak, both men- 
tally and physically. Our modern 
American life especially demands this. The 
practice of taking a quiet hour or even a half 
hour a day, alone by oneself, for quiet, for 
relaxation, for rest, will be found to be of 
inestimable benefit to the one who is wise 
enough specifically to adopt this practice. 

To get away from the confusion of house- 
hold duties, or the daily routine, to get away 
from contact, sometimes confusing and at 
times even a little jarring, with those about 
one, in order to regain one's mental and phys- 
ical power and through them one's poise, will 
bring rich benefits to any life. Especially is 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

this of value to mothers and home-makers, 
where many times arrangements, duties, la- 
bours, never cease. 



February Sixth 

HE life that goes out in love to all 
is the life that is full, and rich, and 
continually expanding in beauty 
and in power. Such is the life 

that becomes ever more inclusive, and hence 

larger in its scope and influence. 





February Seventh 

E who understands the laws of life 
most fully will take more and 
more the mental attitude of hap- 
piness. It is just as easy as its 
opposite; and in time it becomes the habit. 
It is better and a great deal cheaper. The 
better we understand life, the more we come 
to the realization of the fact that happiness 
is a duty. It signifies that we are working 
in harmony with the laws of our being. It is 
one of the concomitants of righteousness. 
Righteousness in its last analysis will be 
found to be living in right relations with the 
-C 23 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

laws of our being and with the laws of the 
universe about us. 

This attitude, this habit of happiness is also 
a benefit to others. As cheerfulness induces 
cheerfulness in others, so happiness inspires 
and induces happiness. We communicate 
this condition to those about us. Its effects 
come back in turn from them to us again. 
As anger inspires anger, as love and sympa- 
thy inspire love and sympathy in others — 
each of its kind, so cheerfulness and happi- 
ness inspire the same in others. 



February Eighth 




jHE wisest and most interesting men 
talk little, think much, complain 
never, but travel on. How far 
have you come today, Brother? 



February Ninth 

BOUNDING health and strength- 
wholeness — is the natural law of 
the body. The Life Force of the 
body, acting always under the di- 
rection of the subconscious mind, will build, 
< 24 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

and always does build, healthily and normally, 
unless too much interfered with. 

It is this that determines the type of the cell 
structure that is continually being built into 
the body from the available portions of the 
food that we take to give nourishment to the 
body. It is affected for good or for ill, 
helped or hindered, in its operation by the 
type of conscious thought that is directed to- 
ward it, and that it is always influenced by. 



February Tenth 




ERE is a wall being built. Bricks 
are the material used in its con- 
struction. We do not say that the 
bricks are building the wall; we say 
that the mason is building it, as is the case. 
He is using the material that is supplied him, 
in this case bricks, giving form and structure 
in a definite, methodical manner. Again, 
back of the mason is his mind, acting through 
the channel of his thought, that is directing 
his hands and all his movements. Without 
this guiding, directing force no wall could take 
shape, even if millions of bricks were deliv- 
ered upon the scene. 

So it is with the body. We take the food, 
the water, we breathe the air; but this is all 
< 25 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

and always acted upon by a higher force. 
Thus it is that mind builds body, the same 
as in every department of our being it is the 
great builder. Our thoughts shape and de- 
termine our features, our walk, the posture 
of our bodies, our voices; they determine the 
effectiveness of our mental and our physical 
activities, as well as all our relations with and 
influence or effects upon others. 



February Eleventh 

HERE is an especial duty at middle 
age to sow the right seed thoughts 
that will make the latter period of 
life as beautiful and as attractive 
as it can be made. 




February Twelfth 

S we grow older we are continually 
in more danger of becoming too 
serious than the contrary. God 
deliver us from the men and wo- 
men who become so serious — so chronically 
serious — that they haven't the time or the in- 
clination for the occasional levity, for the 
day off, who gradually push out from their 
-C 26 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

make-up a good, wholesome sense of the hu- 
morous. 

If God intended anything, He intended that 
we live simply and naturally, that we grow, — 
sometimes through knocks, — and growing that 
we contribute our share to the neighbour's 
and the world's life and work, but that we be 
happy while we do it. The real welfare of 
the world never has depended and never will 
depend upon any one man or woman. 

There are of course specially busy times in 
every life. To be serious while in the midst 
of these times may be well, but to allow 
oneself to grow so that he becomes chronically 
serious, sometimes defeats the very effective- 
ness of his efforts, while at the same time it 
gradually renders him a sort of bore both to 
himself and to those about him. 



February Thirteenth 

F our heart goes out in love to all 
with whom we come in contact, we 
inspire love and the same en- 
nobling and warming influences of 

love always return to us from those in whom 

we inspire them. 

-C 27 > 





THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

February Fourteenth 

ACK of and working continually in 
and through the human will is the 
Divine will. God is spirit, said 
the Christ — not a spirit, which is 
now known to be a faulty translation of the 
Greek — but God is spirit. God is that spirit 
of Infinite Life and Power that is back of all, 
working in and through all, the essential life 
and force in all. 

To realize the essential oneness of our lives 
with this Spirit of all Life and all Power, to 
think and to act always from this conscious 
Centre, is to grow in the realization and in the 
appropriation of an ever-greatening degree of 
Divine guidance and power. 

To know God whom the Christ revealed, is 
to come into an ever-enlarging knowledge of 
the Divine laws and forces that are at work in 
our lives and in the universe about us. 



February Fifteenth 

AILURE to realize and to keep in 
constant communion with our 
Source is what causes fears, fore- 
bodings, worry, inharmony, con- 
flict, conflict that downs us many times in 
< 28 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

mind, in spirit, in body — failure to follow 
that Light that lighteth every man that cometh 
into the world, failure to hear and to heed that 
Voice of the soul, that speaks continually 
clearer as we accustom ourselves to listen to 
and to heed it, failure to follow those intui- 
tions with which the soul, every soul, is en- 
dowed, and that lead us aright and that become 
clearer in their leadings as we follow them. 
It is this guidance and this sustaining power 
that all great souls fall back upon in times of 
great crises. 



February Sixteenth 

HATEVER estimate you put upon 
yourself will determine the effec- 
tiveness of your work along any 
line. As long as you live merely 
in the physical and the intellectual, you set 
limitations to yourself that will hold you as 
long as you so live. 

The men and the women who are truly 
awake to the real powers within are the men 
and women who seem to be doing so little, 
yet who in reality are doing so much. 



-C 29 > 





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February Seventeenth 

LL great educators are men of great 
vision. It was Dr. Hiram Corson 
who said: "It is what man draws 
up from his sub-self which is of 
prime importance in his true education, not 
what is put into him. It is the occasional up- 
rising of our sub-selves that causes us, at 
times, to feel that we are greater than we 
know." A new psychology, spiritual science, 
a more common-sense interpretation of the 
great revelation of the Christ of Nazareth, all 
combine to enable us to make this occasional 
uprising our natural and normal state. 

To follow the higher leadings of the soul, 
which is so constituted that it is the inlet, and 
as a consequence the outlet of Divine Spirit, 
Creative Energy, the real source of all wisdom 
and power; to project its leadings into every 
phase of material activity and endeavour, con- 
stitutes the ideal life. It was Emerson who 
said: "Every soul is not only the inlet, but 
may become the outlet of all there is in God." 
To keep this inlet open, so as not to shut out 
the Divine inflow, is the secret of all higher 
achievement, as well as attainment. 



-c 30 y 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



February Eighteenth 




|E true to the highest within your own 
soul, and then allow yourself to 
be governed by no customs or con- 
ventionalities or arbitrary man- 




made rules that are not founded upon prin- 
ciple. 

February Nineteenth 

HE peevish, gloomy, grumbling, 
panicky, critical — the small — cast 
a sort of deadening, unwholesome 
influence wherever they go. They 
get, however, what they give, for they inspire 
and call back to themselves thoughts and feel- 
ings of the kind they are sufficiently stupid to 
allow to be a dominating influence in their own 
lives. People ruled by the mood of gloom 
attract to themselves gloomy people and 
gloomy conditions, those that are of no help 
to them, but rather a hindrance. 

The cheerful, confident, tranquil in all cir- 
cumstances are continually growing in these 
same qualities, for the mind grows by and in 
the direction of that which it feeds upon. 
This process of mental chemistry is continu- 
ally working in our lives, bringing us de- 
sirable or undesirable conditions according to 
our prevailing mental states. 
-C 31 3- 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



February Twentieth 




HE course of determining resolutely 
to expect only those things which 
we desire, or which will be ulti- 
mately for our larger good, of 
thinking health and strength rather than dis- 
ease and weakness, an abundance for all our 
needs rather than poverty, success rather than 
failure, of looking for and calling from others 
the best there is in them, is one of the greatest 
aids also to bodily health and perfection. 

As a rule one seldom knows of those of this 
trend or determination of mind complaining 
of physical ailments, because they are gen- 
erally free from the long list of ailments and 
disabilities that have their origin in perverted 
emotional and mental states, that by being 
regularly fed are allowed to externalize them- 
selves and become settled conditions. 



February Twenty-first 

love the fields and the wild flow- 
ers, the stars, the far-open sea, the 
soft, warm earth, and to live much 
with them alone ; but to love strug- 
gling and weary men and women and every 
pulsing, living creature better. 

-C 32 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




February Twenty-second 

UR complex modern life, especially 
in our larger centres, gets us run- 
ning so many times into grooves 
that we are prone to miss, and some- 
times for long periods, the all-round, com- 
pleter life. We are led at times almost to 
forget that the "stars come nightly to the 
sky," or even that there is a sky; that there 
are hedgerows and groves where the birds are 
always singing and where we can lie on our 
backs and watch the treetops swaying above 
us and the clouds floating by an hour or hours 
at a time ; where one can live with his soul or, 
as Whitman has put it, where one can loaf 
and invite his soul. 



February Twenty-third 




E need changes from the duties and 
the cares of our accustomed every- 
day life. They are necessary for 
healthy, normal living. We need 
occasionally to be away from our friends, 
our relatives, from the members of our im- 
mediate households. Such changes are good 
for us; they are good for them. We appre- 

< 33 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

ciate them better, they us, when we are away 
from them for a period, or they from us. 



February Twenty -fourth 

HE thing that pays, and that makes 
for a well balanced, useful, and 
happy life, is not necessarily and 
is not generally a sombre, pious 
morality, or any standard of life that keeps 
us from a free, happy, spontaneous use and 
enjoyment of all normal and healthy facul- 
ties, functions, and powers, the enjoyment of 
all innocent pleasures — use, but not abuse, 
enjoyment, but enjoyment through self-mas- 
tery and not through license or perverted use, 
for it can never come that way. 

Look where we will, in or out and around 
us, we will find that it is the middle ground 
— neither poverty nor excessive riches, good 
wholesome use without license, a turning into 
the bye-ways along the main road where inno- 
cent and healthy God-sent and God-intended 
pleasures and enjoyments are to be found; but 
never getting far enough away to lose sight of 
the road itself. The middle ground it is that 
the wise man or woman plants foot upon. 



-C 34 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

February Twenty-fifth 

N the degree that you keep young 
in thought will you remain young 
in body. And you will find that 
your body will in turn aid your 

mind, for body helps mind, the same as mind 

helps body. 





February Twenty-sixth 

HE fearing, grumbling, worrying, 
vacillating do not succeed in any- 
thing and generally live by bur- 
dening, in some form or another, 
some one else. They stand in the way of, 
they prevent their own success; they fail in 
living even an ordinary healthy, normal life; 
they cast a blighting influence over and they 
act as a hindrance to all with whom they at 
any time come in contact. 

The pleasures we take captive in life, the 
growth and advancement we make, the pleas- 
ure and benefit our company or acquaintance- 
ship brings to others, the very desirability of 
our companionship on the part of others — 
all depend upon the types of thought we en- 
tertain and live most habitually with. 



-C 35 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



February Twenty -seventh 

HIS is the law of prosperity: 
When apparent adversity comes, 
be not cast down by it, but make 
the best of it, and always look for- 
ward for better things, for conditions more 
prosperous. To hold yourself in this attitude 
of mind is to set into operation subtle, silent, 
and irresistible forces that sooner or later will 
actualize in material form that which is to- 
day merely an idea. But ideas have occult 
power, and ideas, when rightly planted and 
rightly tended, are the seeds that actualize 
material conditions. 

Never give a moment to complaint, but util- 
ize the time that would otherwise be spent in 
this way in looking forward and actualizing 
the conditions you desire. Suggest prosper- 
ity to yourself. See yourself in a prosper- 
ous condition. Affirm that you will before 
long be in a prosperous condition. Affirm it 
calmly and quietly, but strongly and confi- 
dently. Believe it, believe it absolutely. 
Expect it, — keep it continually watered with 
expectation. You thus make yourself a mag- 
net to attract the things that you desire. 
Don't be afraid to suggest. 

-C 36 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

February Twenty-eighth 

AITH is an invisible and invinci- 
ble magnet, and attracts to itself 
whatever it fervently desires and 
calmly and persistently expects. 




March First 

VERYTHING about us gives un- 
mistakable evidence that the best 
thought of the age is converging to 
the point that the Christianity of 
the Christ has but little to do with any specu- 
lations or any formulations of the past; but 
that it is all the time taking form as Jesus 
himself epitomized it — Love to God, and love 
to man. Simple to state, but locked up within 
them the mightiest force for the uplifting and 
the glorifying of the individual life, and for 
the remoulding and the higher consummation 
of all human relations that we have yet known. 
The redeemed Christianity relates to the 
whole man — mind, body, and soul — not to 
any mythical saving of the soul merely; the 
soul needs saving only when the mind and the 
body work wrong. 

And so intelligent men and women who 
know the never-failing Law of Cause and Ef- 
-C 37 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

feet, and who see it as one of God's immut- 
able and never to be evaded laws, are inter- 
ested primarily in a means of salvation here 
and now — which incidentally will take care 
of all salvation hereafter. 

One of the great truths that we are in pos- 
session of in this twentieth century is that 
man can co-operate with God to an hitherto 
undreamed-of degree, and in the degree in 
which he does, do the higher powers and forces 
co-operate with him in all his activities, and 
make accomplishment doubly sure and of the 
kind that is abundantly safe and permanent. 



March Second 

E have heard much of "personal 
magnetism." Careful analysis 
will, I think, reveal the fact that the 
one who has to any marked degree 
the element of personal magnetism is one of 
the large-hearted, magnanimous, cheer-bring- 
ing, unself-centred types, whose positive 
thought forces are be'ng continually felt by 
others, and are continually inspiring and call- 
ing forth from others these same splendid at- 
tributes. I have yet to find any one, man or 
woman, of the opposite habits and, therefore, 
trend of mind and heart who has had or who 
-C 38 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

has even to the slightest perceptible degree the 
quality that we ordinarily think of when we 
use the term "personal magnetism." 

If one would have friends he or she must 
be a friend, must radiate habitually friendly, 
helpful thoughts, good will, love. 



March Third 

PECULATION and belief are giv- 
ing way to a greater knowledge of 
law. The supernatural recedes 
into the background as we delve 
deeper into the supernormal. The unusual 
loses its miraculous element as we gain knowl- 
edge of the law whereby the thing is done. 
We are realizing that no miracle has ever been 
performed in the world's history that was not 
through the understanding and the use of 
Law. 

Jesus did unusual things; but he did them 
because of his unusual understanding of the 
law through which they could be done. He 
would not have us believe otherwise. To do 
so would be a distinct contradiction of the 
whole tenor of his teachings and his injunc- 
tions. Ye shall know the truth and the truth 
shall make you free, was his own admonition. 
-C 39 > 





THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

March Fourth 

grow and to keep in person 
as attractive as possible should be 
not only every one's pleasure, but 
should be also every one's duty. 




March Fifth 

HE person of the weak, fearing type 
of mind and thought is the one who 
ordinarily dares not attempt what- 
ever his longings or ambitions may 
be. Or, if venturesome enough to begin, it 
frequently happens -that he lacks that sustain- 
ing power or force that is necessary to carry 
the undertaking through until accomplishment 
is assured. 

It is safe to say that this is true in vast 
numbers of cases on account of the mind al- 
lowing itself to become the victim of, and to 
be dominated by, fears and forebodings rather 
than on account of any real lack of sustaining 
force as such; for ordinarily the mind grows 
along the lines of its accustomed activity, and 
strength gathers as we advance, if we have but 
the fortitude and the stamina to begin. 



-C 40 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




March Sixth 

AST amounts of pleasure are es- 
caping us, because many times 
we take too limited a view of life; 
we forget that, after all, it is the 
life itself that is good, and that it has almost 
limitless possibilities of expansion if we would 
but lift ourselves from the dead level of the 
commonplace into which we drift many times, 
all unconsciously, through habit. 

We focus our energies upon, we give al- 
most our entire time and attention to the 
round of daily, petty details. In this way we 
allow ourselves to become so absorbed in, so 
possessed and enslaved by them — and even 
so annoyed by them sometimes to the state of 
abnormal nervous depletion — that we become 
engulfed in that dead sea of monotony that 
makes us all but mad. 



March Seventh 




NE of the misshapen and subtle- 
mannered sisters of fear is worry. 
The two generally go hand in 
hand. They work in pairs. They 
are of the same parentage — a lack of faith 
in the eternal goodness of the Divine Power 
< 41 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

that is back of the universe working continu- 
ally in it and in all lives, through the instru- 
mentality of great and immutable systems of 
law, and a lack of faith that all things work 
together for good, for those who love the good 
and who are making even a decently brave 
effort to live a normal, unself-centred, and 
useful life. 



March Eighth 

EAR paralyses healthy action, both 
mental and physical. Worry cor- 
rodes, poisons, and pulls down the 
organism. It is a perverted men- 
tal state that externalizes itself in various 
physical ailments according to the peculiar 
native tendencies or weaknesses of the one in 
whose organism its effects find lodgment. 
Many a death long before its time, in addition 
to many a depleted nervous and general physi- 
cal condition, is due directly to it. 

There is probably no agency that brings us 
more undesirable results than worry; and the 
most interesting feature of the whole matter, 
as well as the most astonishing, when we ex- 
amine carefully into it, is the fact that through 
it nothing is ever to be gained but, on the 
other hand, everything is to be lost. The ap- 
-C 42 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

preciation and clear realization of this one 
fact should be sufficient to arouse us to that 
degree of determination that will allow it ab- 
solutely no place in our lives. 



March Ninth 

APPINESS is the natural and the 
normal; it is one of the concomi- 
tants of righteousness, which means 
living in right relations with the 
laws of our being and the laws of the universe 
about us. No clear-thinking man or woman 
can be an apostle of despair. 



jjj 






March Tenth 

HERE is a large class, and undoubt- 
edly of increasing proportions, 
who are missing much of the real 
pleasures and contentments of life 
because they have got on a wrong track and 
are giving more time and attention to the mere 
accessories of life than to the life itself. 

That is the reason many times that those of 

moderate means, in comfortable circumstances 

as we say, enjoy a far more natural and 

normal and therefore happy life than the ex- 

-C 43 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

cessively rich. The great difficulty with 
many, at least, of the excessively rich is that 
the natural tendency or drawing is always 
away from the real place where pleasure and 
satisfaction that is at all abiding is to be found 
— within one's self. It was Milton who said: 
"There is nothing that makes men rich and 
strong but that which they carry inside of 
them. Wealth is of the heart, not of the 
hand." 

True, wealth is of value as a means to an 
end, but never as an end. It is the same as 
with happiness, it cannot be sought merely as 
an end with any satisfactory results, for those 
who make the seeking of it their chief end are 
among the most unhappy people in the world. 



March Eleventh 

ACK of all modern idealistic phi- 
losophy foreshadowing what great 
minds would eventually deduce 
through the processes of research 
and of reason, stands the Galilean Teacher, 
formulating a world ethic and a world re- 
ligion through the processes of direct con- 
sciousness, by choosing so to order his life 
that these revelations of the inner life and 
< 44 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

consciousness might be revealed clearly and 
unmistakably to him. 

The truth that he perceived, and therefore 
the discovery that he made and presented so 
simply and so persuasively to the world, was 
the fact that the human and the Divine are the 
two phases of the same great order of being, 
to be personified in man at his highest. 
There is that in God that manifests itself as, 
and that therefore becomes, human. There 
is that in man that is divine and that awaits 
only his recognition to manifest itself as di- 
vine. 

The divine essence, the divine Centre of life, 
came to Jesus as "Father," and to him the 
Kingdom of God or the Kingdom of Heaven 
took the form of a filial relationship between 
man and God. It was this indwelling divine 
life, this "Father in me," to which he ascribed 
all of his wonderful knowledge and all of his 
wonderful works. 



March Twelfth 

[ HE things that come into our hands 
come not for the purpose of being 
possessed, as we say, much less for 
the purpose of being hoarded. We 
are stewards merely, and as stewards we shall 
< 45 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

be held accountable for the way we use what- 
ever is entrusted to us. 



March Thirteenth 




HRIST is the universal Divine na- 
ture in all. It is the state of God- 
consciousness, it is the recognition 
of the indwelling God. It is the 
realization of this Divine life as the essence of 
our life, as our very life itself, and living con- 
tinually in thought, and therefore in act, from 
this the real centre. The man Jesus becomes 
the Christ Jesus — truly the Messiah and the 
Saviour of men — by virtue of being the first 
to sense, to realize, and to travel the Way. 

"I believe," said Emerson, "in the still 
small voice, and that voice is the Christ within 
me." Man is eternally one with the Divine 
source of all life. Jesus realizing this in its 
completeness said, and said most truly, "I and 
my Father are one." In life, in love, in 
power, our true being is perfect. As we com- 
prehend the real meaning of this and through 
the joint agencies of desire and will we live 
life from its true Centre, we are led into an 
appreciation of the wonderful possibilities of 
human life here and now. 

< 46 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 
March Fourteenth 

HE son of Joseph and Mary, through 
his supreme aptitude for the things 
of the Spirit, realized, as no one 
before and no one since has re- 
alized, that there is an insurgence of the Di- 
vine in and through the human, when the hu- 
man, through desire and through will, meets 
the conditions whereby this can become a re- 
ality. 

The Divine Wisdom and Power works in 
and through the human in the degree that the 
human in consciousness realizes its true Re- 
ality, and so meets the conditions whereby 
this can come about. It is, so to speak, 
rightly to connect one's self with the great 
reservoir of Life. A plant, deriving its sus- 
tenance from the soil, cannot have this con- 
nection broken or materially interfered with, 
and maintain an ideal growth and form, if 
indeed it continue to live at all. Man cannot 
fail to make and to keep his right relations 
with the true source of his life, unless it be 
with the result of a mere physical existence, 
uncertain, weak, and dwarfed, and piteously 
below his possibilities. 

We will eventually find that the "fall of 
man" consists in his failure to realize his es- 
sential and true identity. 

-C 47 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 
March Fifteenth 




E must take ourselves out of the 
class of the "afraids" — the ab- 
normals. The commanding figures 
in life do not fear. The time 
others are giving to it and therefore to allow- 
ing the neutralizing and even paralysing 
power of this perverted mental force to work 
its havoc in their lives, they are giving to see- 
ing the ideal they would actualize or attain to, 
and then setting into activity strong, definite, 
certain types of thought-forces that are hourly 
and even momentarily working for them along 
the lines they are going. Thoughts are forces; 
like creates like, and like attracts like. 

The same law is in operation here that is 
in operation in connection with what we may 
term the "drawing power of mind," — we are 
continually attracting to us from both the 
seen and the unseen sides of life, forces 
and conditions most akin to our prevailing 
thoughts and emotions. 



March Sixteenth 

HE hopeful, cheerful, confident find 
themselves continually growing in 
faith, in' confident, healthy opti- 
mism, in courage; they are also 
-C 48 > 





THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

continually attracting and drawing to them- 
selves, thus gaining as friends and helpers 
those of similar qualities and possessions, and 
they are likewise inspiring these qualities in 
others. 



March Seventeenth 

HOUGHTS of good will, sympa- 
thy, magnanimity, good cheer — 
in brief, all thoughts emanating 
from a spirit of love — are felt in 
their positive, warming, and stimulating in- 
fluences by others; they inspire in turn the 
same types of thoughts and feelings in them, 
and they come back to us laden with their 
ennobling, stimulating, pleasure-bringing in- 
fluences. 

Thoughts of envy, or malice, or hatred, or 
ill will are likewise felt by others. They are 
influenced adversely by them. They inspire 
either the same types of thoughts and emotions 
in them; or they produce in them a certain 
type of antagonistic feeling that has the 
tendency to neutralize and, if continued for a 
sufficient length of time, deaden sympathy and 
thereby all friendly relations. 



"-C 49 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

March Eighteenth 

HE thing to do is not to spend time 
in railing against the imaginary 
something we create and call fate, 
but to look to the within, and 
change the causes at work there, in order that 
things of a different nature may come. 





March Nineteenth 

VERY general rule with but few 

exceptions can be laid down as 

follows: The body ordinarily 

looks as old as the mind thinks 

and feels. 

Shakespeare anticipated by many years the 
best psychology of the times when he said: 
"It is the mind that makes the body rich." 

It seems to me that our great problem, or 
rather our chief concern, should not be so 
much how to stay young in the sense of pos- 
sessing all the attributes of youth, for the 
passing of the years does bring changes, but 
how to pass gracefully, and even magnifi- 
cently, and with undiminished vigour from 
youth to middle age, and then how to carry 
that middle age into approaching old age, 
with a great deal more of the vigour and the 
outlook of middle life than we ordinarily do. 
< 50 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

The mental as well as the physical helps 
that are now in the possession of our genera- 
tion, are capable of working a revolution in 
the lives of many who are or who may become 
sufficiently awake to them, so that with them 
there will not be that — shall we say — imma- 
ture passing from middle life into a broken, 
purposeless, decrepit, and sunless, and one 
might almost say, soulless old age. 



March Twentieth 

set the face in the right direction, 
and then simply to travel on, un- 
mindful and never discouraged by 
even frequent relapses by the way, 
is the secret of all human achievement. 




March Twenty-first 

T after all depends upon what we 
really want — not what we may 
vaguely or spasmodically desire or 
even long for, that determines what 
we really are in habit, in character, in life. 
If we understand the law and are willing to 
pay the temporary price, there is practically 
nothing that we cannot overcome, and at least 
•C 51 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

in quality of habit, character and life attain 
to. 

It is better and more honest to believe that 
we determine our own fate, and then set about 
in a manly or a womanly fashion to carry this 
belief into practice, than to rail against an 
imaginary something we create and call fate. 
Henley was the seer as well as the poet when 
he sang: 

It matters not how strait the gate, 
How charged with punishment the scroll, 
I am the master of my fate: 
I am the captain of my soul. 



March Twenty-second 

UR thoughts and emotions are the 
silent, subtle forces that are con- 
stantly externalizing themselves in 
kindred forms in our outward ma- 
terial world. Like creates like, and like at- 
tracts like. As is our prevailing type of 
thought, so is our prevailing type and our 
condition of life. 




-C 52 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 





^ u 



March Twenty-third 

HE subconscious mind is wonder- 
fully exact in its workings, and it 
is marvellously responsive to the 
active thinking mind. To see one's 
self growing healthfully, to think and to image 
health and wholeness, instead of disease, to 
live chronically in the mental attitude of 
faith, and hope and courage, instead of fear, 
pessimism and cynicism, creates healthy cell 
tissue and wholeness of body. 

To live in thoughts of love, sympathy, 
good-will, and service for all of one's neigh- 
bours and for all people, instead of with 
thoughts of hatred or envy or jealousy, means 
building for health and for wholeness instead 
of weakness and disease. As is the mind and 
spirit so inevitably in time will become the 
body. 



March Twenty-fourth 

E are living the eternal life now as 
much as we ever will or ever can 
live it. The only Heaven we will 
ever have is the one we realize, 
make, and carry with us. We determine al- 
ways our own condition — Heaven or Hell — 
here and hereafter. 

-C 53 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




March Twenty-fifth 

GNORANCE enchains and enslaves. 
Truth — which is but another way 
of saying — a clear and definite 
knowledge of Law, the elemental 
laws of soul, of mind, and body, and of the 
universe about us — brings freedom. Jesus 
revealed essentially a spiritual philosophy of 
life. His whole revelation pertained to the 
essential divinity of the human soul and the 
great gains that would follow the realization 
of this fact. 

His whole teaching revolved continually 
around his own expression, used again and 
again, the Kingdom of God, or the Kingdom 
of Heaven, and which he so distinctly stated 
was an inner state or consciousness or realiza- 
tion. Something not to be found outside of 
oneself but to be found only within. 




March Twenty-sixth 

HE great and strong character is the 
one who is ever ready to sacrifice 
the present pleasure for the future 
good. 



-C 54 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

March Twenty -seventh 

PERSON of the strong, positive, 
faith type, or finality of thought, 
is the one who not only has the 
native ability — the initiative as we 
say — sufficient to begin activities along the 
lines of his or her dreams or longings or am- 
bitions, but also a force of sufficient sustaining 
nature to keep true to that set purpose until in 
time the goal is reached, the purpose accom- 
plished. 

In accomplishment, moreover, lies one of 
the chief pleasures that men or women can 
know, — unless, perchance, the thing accom- 
plished is of a common or low nature by vir- 
tue of its being purely for the individual 
satisfaction or gain, in distinction from its 
wider element of use and service for the larger 
good; and unless, also, he or she become so 
a slave to it that it absorbs the entire life, so 
to speak, making it thereby ill-balanced and 
one-sided. 



March Twenty-eighth 

] AID a bucket to his companion as 
they were going to the well, "How 
dismal you look!" "Ah!" replied 
the other, "I was reflecting on the 
< 55 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

uselessness of our being filled — for, let us 
go away ever so full, we always come back 
empty." "Dear me! How strange to look at 
it in that way," said the other bucket. "Now 
I enjoy the thought that, however empty we 
come, we always go away full. Only look on 
it in that light and you will be as cheerful as 
I am." It is a simple, homely little illustra- 
tion, or parable shall we call it, given utter- 
ance to by E. J. Hardy; nevertheless it speaks 
almost volumes so far as one great fundamen- 
tal of happy or unhappy living is concerned. 

The cheerful, hopeful, expectant habit of 
mind and heart is one of the most potent fac- 
tors, or rather agencies, in materializing in 
life those qualities, and also those conditions 
and surroundings, that we most fondly desire, 
and that combine to bring the greatest pleas- 
ures and satisfactions into life. Of one thing 
we can always rest assured: as is our kind of 
thought so is our kind of life, or so it will in- 
evitably become. 

To look for the best, habitually for the best, 
in all people and all things puts us on the di- 
rect line of finding what we are looking for. 
It moreover puts into operation a positive, 
active force that tends also to perpetuate itself 
in our lives; and when this is once in the 
ascendancy then the fearing, vacillating types 
and habits of thought have difficulty in making 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

their entrance. The one is the direct antith- 
esis of the other. 



March Twenty-ninth 

S we understand the laws of scien- 
tific mind and body building bet- 
ter, we will realize that whatever 
changes we would have in the lat- 
ter we must of necessity first make in the 
former. 




March Thirtieth 




E American people are prone to take 
our work, our business, our pro- 
fessions so seriously and to get so 
thoroughly in harness, as we say, 



i;hat we do not take the time for the relaxations 
and the pleasures that we could enjoy and 
could give also to those in more immediate 
contact with us, if we were to stop and con- 
sider more carefully than we do. The peo- 
ple of several other countries can give us 
some valuable lessons along these lines. 

To mingle one's pleasures — and I mean al- 
ways healthy, moderate pleasures — with his 
work as he goes along, is unquestionably the 
part of the wise. 

-C 57 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

March Thirty-first 

LIFTING up of the mind to the real 
fundamentals of life occasionally, 
gives us that enlarged vision, that 
wider horizon that saves us many 
times from such complete absorption in the 
little details, and even trivialities, that we 
bother about and that will in so many cases 
take care of themselves if we will but give 
them the chance and not bother about them. 
We concern ourselves daily and we bother 
about things that get us into actual ruts of 
thought, of work, of habit. 

It is for this very reason that the occasional 
trip away from home, away from those with 
whom we are in daily contact — the members 
of our own households — is of great value. 
The occasional travel — contact with new 
scenes, agencies, people — gives a change 
which becomes a rest and which is productive, 
if we are alert, of a continually wider hori- 
zon, so that we return to the home scenes, 
the home people, and to the duties of daily 
life again with a freshness of spirit, a wealth 
of experience, a new angle of vision, and a 
freshness also of endeavour both mental and 
physical that cannot help lifting the life to a 
higher level. 

-C 58 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




April First 

E are reconstructing a more natural, 
a more sane, a more common-sense 
portrait of the Master. "It is the 
spirit that quickeneth," said he; 
"the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I 
speak unto you, they are spirit and they are 
life." Shall we recall again in this connec- 
tion: "I am come that ye might have life and 
that ye might have it more abundantly"? 

When, therefore, we take him at his word, 
and listen intently to his words, and not so 
much to the words of others about him; when 
we place our emphasis upon the fundamental 
spiritual truths that he revealed and that he 
pleaded so earnestly to be taken in the simple, 
direct way in which he taught them, we are 
finding that the religion of the Christ means 
a clearer and healthier understanding of life 
and its problems through a greater knowledge 
of the elemental forces and laws of life. 



April Second 




N unbiased study of Jesus' own 
words will reveal the fact that he 
taught only what he himself had 
first realized. It is this, moreover, 
that makes him the supreme teacher of all 
< 59 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

time — Counsellor, Friend, Saviour. It is the 
saving of men from their lower conceptions 
and selves, a lifting of them up to their higher 
selves, which, as he taught, is eternally one 
with God, the Father, and which, when re- 
alized, will inevitably, reflexly, one might say, 
lift a man's thoughts, acts, conduct — the en- 
tire life — up to that standard or pattern. 

It is thus that the Divine ideal, that 
the Christ becomes enthroned within. The 
Christ-consciousness is the universal Divine 
nature in us. It is the state of God-conscious- 
ness. It is the recognition of the indwelling 
Divine life as the source, and therefore the 
essence of our own lives. 



April Third 

HE great purpose at which the Mas- 
ter laboured so incessantly was 
the teaching of the realization of 
the Divine will in the hearts and 
minds, and through these in the lives of men 
— the finding and the realization of the King- 
dom of God. This is the supreme fact of 
life. Get right at the centre and the circum- 
ference will then care for itself. As is the 
inner, so always and invariably will be the 
outer. There is an inner guide that regulates 
-C 60 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

the life when this inner guide is allowed to 
assume authority. Why be disconcerted, why 
in a heat concerning so many things? It is 
not the natural and the normal life. Life at 
its best is something infinitely beyond this. 
"Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His 
righteousness, and all these things shall be 
added unto you." And if there is any doubt 
in regard to his real meaning in this here is 
his answer: "Neither shall they say, 6 Lo 
here' or 'Lo there' for behold the Kingdom of 
God is within you." 



April Fourth 

MAN who is gripped at all vitally 
by Jesus' teaching of the personal 
fatherhood of God, and the per- 
sonal brotherhood of man, simply 
can't help but make the Golden Rule the basic 
rule of his life — and moreover find joy in so 
making it. A man who really comprehends 
this fundamental teaching can't be crafty, 
sneaking, dishonest, or dishonourable, in his 
business, or in any phase of his personal life. 
He never hogs the penny — in other words, he 
never seeks to gain his own advantage to the 
disadvantage of another. 

He may be long-headed; he may be able to 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

size up and seize conditions; but he seeks no 
advantage for himself to the detriment of his 
fellow, to the detriment of his community, or 
to the detriment of his extended community, 
the nation or the world. He is thoughtful, 
considerate, open, frank; and, moreover, finds 
great joy in being so. 



April Fifth 

F is not with observation, said Jesus/ 
that the supreme thing that he 
taught — the seeking and finding of 
the Kingdom of God — will come. 
Do not seek it at some other place, some other 
time. It is within, and if within it will show 
forth. Make no mistake about that, — it will 
show forth. It touches and it sensitizes the 
inner springs of action in a man's or a woman's 
life. 

When a man realizes his Divine sonship 
that Jesus taught, he will act as a son of God. 
Out of the heart spring either good or evil 
actions. Self-love, me, mine; let me get all 
I can for myself, or, thou shalt love thy 
neighbour as thyself — the Divine law of serv- 
ice, of mutuality — the highest source of ethics. 

-C 62 > 



v. 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

April Sixth 

T is well for one not to try to do 
too much each day. To do what 
one can with ease and to let the 
rest go without qualms or mis- 
givings of any type will brighten many days 
in many lives. 





April Seventh 

OU can trust any man whose heart 
is right. He will be straight, 
clean, reliable. His word will be 
as good as his bond. Personally 
you can't trust a man who is brought into any 
line of action, or into any institution through 
fear. The sore is there, liable to break out 
in corruption at any time. The opening up 
of the springs of the inner life frees him also 
from the letter of the law, which after all con- 
sists of the traditions of men, and makes him 
subject to that higher moral guide within. 
How clearly Jesus illustrated this in his con- 
versations regarding the observance of the 
Sabbath — how the Sabbath was made for man 
and not man for the Sabbath, and how it was 
always right to do good on the Sabbath. 



-C 63 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

April Eighth 

I THINK we do incalculable harm 
by separating Jesus so completely 
from the more homely, common- 
place affairs of our daily lives. 
If we had a more adequate account of his dis- 
courses with the people and his associations 
with the people, we would perhaps find that 
he was not, after all, so busy in saving the 
world that he didn't have time for the simple, 
homely enjoyments and affairs of the every- 
day life. The little glimpses that we have of 
him along these lines indicate to me that he 
had. Unless we get his truths right into this 
phase of our lives, the chances are that we 
will miss them entirely. 

And I think that with all his earnestness, 
Jesus must have had an unusually keen sense 
of humour. With his unusual perceptions 
and his unusual powers in reading and in 
understanding human nature, it could not be 
otherwise. That he had a keen sense for 
beauty; that he saw it, that he valued it, that 
he loved it, especially beauty in all nature, 
many of his discourses so abundantly prove. 
Religion with him was not divorced from life. 
It was the power that permeated every thought 
and every act of the daily life. 

< 64 3- 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

April Ninth 

HAT one lives in his invisible 
thought world he is continually ac- 
tualizing in his visible material 
world. If he would have any con- 
ditions different in the latter he must make the 
necessary changes in the former. 





April Tenth 

F we would seek the essence of Je- 
sus' revelation, attested both by his 
words and his life, it was to bring 
a knowledge of the ineffable love 
of God to man, and by revealing this, to in- 
still in the minds and hearts of men love for 
God, and a knowledge of and following of the 
ways of God. It was also then to bring a 
new emphasis of the Divine law of love — the 
love of man for man. Combined, it results, 
so to speak, in raising men to a higher power, 
to a higher life, — as individuals, as groups, 
as one great world group. 

It is a newly sensitized attitude of mind and 
heart that he brought and that he endeavoured 
to reveal in all its matchless beauty — a follow- 
ing not of the traditions of men, but fidelity 
to one's God, whereby the Divine rule in the 
-C 65 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

mind and heart assumes supremacy and, as 
must inevitably follow, fidelity to one's fel- 
low-men. These are the essentials of Jesus' 
revelation — the fundamental forces in his 
own life. His every teaching, his every act, 
comes back to them. I believe also that all 
efforts to mystify the minds of men and 
women by later theories about him are con- 
trary to his own expressed teaching, and in 
exact degree that they would seek to substi- 
tute other things for these fundamentals. 



April Eleventh 

ND what a basis as a test of char- 
acter is this twofold injunction — 
this great fundamental of Jesus! 
All religion that is genuine flowers 
in character. It was Benjamin Jowett who 
said, and most truly: "The value of a re- 
ligion is the ethical dividend that it pays." 
When the heart is right towards God we have 
the basis, the essence of religion — the con- 
sciousness of God in the soul of man. We 
have truth in the inward parts. When the 
heart is right towards the fellow-man we have 
the essential basis of ethics; for again we 
have truth in the inward parts. 

Out of the heart are the issues of life. 
< 66 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

When the heart is right all outward acts and 
relations are right. Love draws one to the 
very heart of God; and love attunes one to 
all the highest and most valued relationships 
in our human life. 

Fear can never be a basis of either religion 
or ethics. The one who is moved by fear 
makes his chief concern the avoidance of de- 
tection on the one hand, or the escape of pun- 
ishment on the other. 



April Twelfth 

OULD you remain young, and 
would you carry all the joyousness 
and buoyancy of youth into your 
maturer years? Then have care 

concerning but one thing, — how you live in 

your thought world. 




April Thirteenth 

T was Emerson, who said: "I be- 
lieve in the still, small voice, and 
that voice is the Christ within me." 
It was he of whom the famous 
Father Taylor in Boston said: "It may be 
that Emerson is going to hell, but of one thing 

-C 67 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

I am certain : he will change the climate there 
and emigration will set that way." 

So thought Jefferson, who said: "I have 
sworn eternal hostility to every form of tyr- 
anny over the minds of men." And as he, 
great prophet, with his own hand penned that 
immortal document — the Declaration of 
American Independence — one can almost 
imagine the Galilean prophet standing at his 
shoulder and saying: Thomas, I think it 
well to write it so. 

Both had a burning indignation for that 
species of self-seeking either on the part of an 
individual or an organization that would seek 
to enchain the minds and thereby the lives of 
men and women, and even lay claim to their 
children. Yet Jefferson in his time was fre- 
quently called an atheist — and merely be- 
cause men in those days did not distinguish 
as clearly as we do today between ecclesiasti- 
cism and religion, between formulated and 
essential Christianity. 



April Fourteenth 

LL aspiring, all thinking, forward- 
looking men and women of our 
day are not interested any more in 
theories about, explanations of, or 
-C 68 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

dogmas about Jesus. They are being won 
and enthralled by the wonderful personality 
and life of Jesus. They are being gripped by 
the power of his teachings. They do not 
want theories about God — they want God — 
and God is what Jesus brought — God as the 
moving, the predominating, the all-embracing 
force in the individual life. But he who 
finds the Kingdom of God, whose life becomes 
subject to the Divine rule and life within, 
realizes at once also his true relations with 
the whole — with his neighbour, his fellow- 
men. 

He realizes that his neighbour is not merely 
the man next door, the man around the corner, 
or even the man in the next town or city; but 
that his neighbour is every man and every 
woman in the world — because all children of 
the same infinite Father, all bound in the same 
direction, but over many different roads. 



April Fifteenth 

UR prevailing thought forces deter- 
mine the mental atmosphere we 
create around us, and all who come 
within its influence are affected in 




one way or another, according to the quality 
of that atmosphere. 

-C 69 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




April Sixteenth 

HE man who has come under the in- 
fluence and the domination of the 
Divine rule, realizes that his in- 
terests lie in the same direction as 
the interests of all, that he cannot gain for 
himself any good — that is, any essential good 
— at the expense of the good of all ; but rather 
that his interests, his welfare, and the interests 
and the welfare of all others are identical. 

God's rule, the Divine rule, becomes for 
him, therefore, the fundamental rule in the 
business world, the dominating rule in politi- 
cal life and action, the dominating rule in 
the law and relations of nations. 




April Seventeenth 

HERE is a splendid body of young 
men and young women numbering 
into untold thousands, who are be- 
ing captured by the personality and 
the simple direct message of Jesus. Many of 
these have caught his spirit and are going off 
into other lines of the Master's service. They 
are doing effective and telling work there. 
Remember that when the spirit of the Christ 
seizes a man, it is through the channel of 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

present-day forms and present-day terms, not 
in those fifteen hundred, or sixteen hundred, 
or even three hundred years ago. 

There is a spirit of intellectual honesty that 
prevents many men and women from sub- 
scribing to anything to which they cannot give 
their intellectual assent, as well as their moral 
and spiritual assent. They do not object to 
creeds. They know that a creed is but a 
statement, a statement of a man's or a woman's 
belief, whether it be in connection with re- 
ligion, or in connection with anything else. 
But what they do object to is dogma, that un- 
holy thing that lives on credulity, that is there- 
fore destructive of the intellectual and the 
moral life of every man and every woman who 
allows it to lay its paralysing hand upon them, 
that can be held to if one is at all honest and 
given to thought, only through intellectual 
chicanery. 



April Eighteenth 

E must not forget also that God is 

still at work, revealing Himself 

more fully to mankind through 

modern prophets, through modern 

agencies. His revelation is not closed. It 

is still going on. The silly presumption in 

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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

the statement therefore — "the truth once de- 
livered." 

It is well occasionally to call to mind these 
words by Robert Burns, singing free and with 
an untrammelled mind and soul from his 
heather-covered hills. 

Here's freedom to him that wad read, 
Here's freedom to him that wad write; 

There is none ever feared that the truth should be 
heared 
But them that the truth wad indict. 

It is essential to remember that we are in 
possession of knowledge, that we are face to 
face with conditions that are different from 
any in the previous history of Christendom. 
The Christian church must be sure that it 
moves fast enough so as not to alienate, but 
to draw into it that great body of intellectually 
alive, intellectually honest young men and 
women who have the Christ spirit of service 
and who are mastered by a great purpose of 
accomplishment. Remember that these young 
men and women are now merely standing 
where the entire church will stand in a few 
years. Remember that any man or woman 
who has the true spirit of service has the 
spirit of Christ — and more, has the religion 
of the Christ. 

< 72 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

April Nineteenth 




E true to the highest within your 
own soul, and then allow yourself 
to be governed by no customs or 
conventionalities or arbitrary man- 
made rules that are not founded upon prin- 
ciple. 



April Twentieth 




HEN the mental beauties of life, 
when the spiritual verities are sac- 
rificed by self-surrender to and 
domination by the material, one 
of the heavy penalties that inexorable law 
imposes is the drying up, so to speak, of the 
finer human perceptions — the very faculties 
of enjoyment. It presents to the world many 
times, and all unconscious to himself, a 
stunted, shrivelled human being — that eter- 
nal type that the Master had in mind when 
he said: "Thou fool, this night shall thy 
soul be required of thee." 

He whose sole employment or even whose 
primary employment becomes the building of 
bigger and still bigger barns to take care of 
his accumulated grain, becomes incapable of 
realizing that life and the things that pertain 
to it are of infinitely more value than barns, 
< 73 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

or houses, or acres, or stocks, or bonds, or 
railroad ties. These all have their place, all 
are of value; but they can never be made the 
life. 




April Twenty-first 

NE of the great secrets of all suc- 
cessful living is unquestionably the 
striking of the right balance in 
life. The material has its place — 
and a very important place. Fools indeed 
were we to ignore or to attempt to ignore this 
fact. We cannot, however, except to our 
detriment, put the cart before the horse. 

Things may contribute to happiness, but 
things cannot bring happiness — and sad in- 
deed, and crippled and dwarfed and stunted 
becomes the life of every one who is not 
capable of realizing this fact. Eternally true 
indeed is it that the life is more than meat 
and the body more than raiment. 



April Twenty-second 

HE injunction that Jesus gave in re- 
gard to prayer is unquestionably 
the method that he found so ef- 
fective and that he himself used. 
How many times we are told that he withdrew 
< 74 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

to the mountain for his quiet period, for com- 
munion with the Father, that the realization 
of his oneness with God might be preserved 
intact. In this continual realization — I and 
my Father are one — lay his unusual insight 
and power. And his distinct statement which 
he made in speaking of his own powers — as I 
am ye shall be — shows clearly the possibili- 
ties of human unfoldment and attainment, 
since he realized and lived and then revealed 
the way. 

Were not this Divine source of wisdom and 
power the heritage of every human 'soul, dis- 
tinctly untrue then would be Jesus' saying: 
"For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he 
that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knock- 
eth, it shall be opened." Infinitely better is 
it to know that one has -this inner source of 
guidance and wisdom which as he opens him- 
self to it becomes continually more distinct, 
more clear and more unerring in its guidance, 
than to be continually seeking advice from 
outside sources, and being confused in regard 
to the advice given. This is unquestionably 
the way of the natural and the normal life, 
made so simple and so plain by Jesus. 



-C 75 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

April Twenty-third 

OT that problems and trials will not 
come. They will come. There 
never has been and there never will 
be a life free from them. Life 
isn't conceivable on any other terms. But 
the wonderful source of consolation and 
strength, the source that gives freedom from 
worry and freedom from fear is the realiza- 
tion of the fact that the guiding force and 
the moulding power is within us. It becomes 
active and controlling in the degree that we 
realize and in the degree that we are able to 
open ourselves so that the Divine intelligence 
and power can speak to and can work through 
us. 

To establish one's centre aright is to make 
all of life's activities and events and results 
flow from this centre in orderly sequence. A 
modern writer of great insight has said: 
"The understanding that God is, and all there 
is, will establish you upon a foundation from 
which you can never be moved." To know 
that the power that is God is the power that 
works in us is knowedge of transcendent im- 
port. 



r < 76 y 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

April Twenty-fourth 

HE simple message of the Christ, 
with its twofold injunction of Love, 
is, when sufficiently understood 
and sufficiently heeded, all that we 
men of earth need to lift up, to beautify, to 
make strong and Godlike individual lives and 
thereby and of necessity the life of the world. 

He then pleaded with all the energy and 
love and fervour of his splendid heart and 
vigorous manhood that all men should follow 
the Way that he revealed and realize their 
Divine Sonship, that their lives might be re- 
deemed — redeemed from the bondage of the 
bodily senses and the bondage of merely the 
things of the outer world, and saved as fit 
subjects of and workers in the Father's King- 
dom. Otherwise for millions of splendid 
earnest men and women today his life-message 
would have no meaning. 

To make men awake to their real identity, 
and therefore to their possibilities and powers 
as true sons of God, the Father of all, and 
therefore that all men are brothers — for other- 
wise God is not Father of all — and to live to- 
gether in brotherly love and mutual co-opera- 
tion whereby the Divine will becomes done on 
earth as it is in heaven — this is his message to 
we men of earth. If we believe his message 
-C 77 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

and accept his leadership, then he becomes in- 
deed our elder brother who leads the way, the 
Word in us becomes flesh, the Christ becomes 
enthroned in our lives, — and we become co- 
workers with him in the Father's vineyard. 



April Twenty- fifth 

HE cheerful, confident, tranquil in 
all circumstances, are continually 
growing in these same qualities, for 
the mind grows by and in the di- 
rection of that which it feeds upon. This 
process of mental chemistry is continually 
working in our lives, bringing us desirable or 
undesirable conditions according to our pre- 
vailing mental states. 

This attitude of mind is the one also that 
carries us through when the dark day comes 
and things look their worst. It enables us to 
take the "long view," to throw the thought on 
beyond the present-day difficulty or depression 
to the time when it will have worked itself out 
all well and good. Such times come to all. 
We must be brave and bravely take our share. 



-C 78 > 




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April Twenty-sixth 

NE can never do an act of kindly 
service for another without in the 
very act of doing it reaping a cor- 
responding benefit for one's self. 
It is not the professional good-doing, for that 
many times becomes self-conscious, conceited, 
even self-seeking. It is rather setting the 
heart aright and keeping the mind open al- 
ways to seize the opportunity to do the kindly 
service whenever the need is known, wher- 
ever the opportunity presents itself. 

There is also a great law of indirectness 
that operates here. It is this: Whenever we 
do an act of kindly service for another, for- 
getful of and with no thought of self or gain, 
many times it does us more good than the 
one we do it for. The life is broadened, en- 
nobled, expanded, lifted out of and above 
the dwarfed and the stunted of the common- 
place. So in the last analysis it resolves it- 
self into the formula : We find our own lives 
in losing them in the larger human service. 
Why? Eternal Laws have so decreed. 



-C 79 > 



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April Twenty -seventh 




you hatred. 



EET hatred with hatred and you 
degrade yourself. Meet hatred 
with love and you elevate not only 
yourself but also the one who bears 




April Twenty-eighth 

HE companionship of those whose 
minds are alive, forward-looking, 
working, growing, whose hearts 
beat and keep right, who know the 
value of faith and hope and courage, for these 
induce energy and power, is one of the great- 
est helps and therefore assets that any one 
can avail himself or herself of. To seek and 
to cultivate such companionship is a boon to 
any life. It has lifted myriads of lives out of 
the stagnant and dead level of the common- 
place. 



April Twenty-ninth 
OVE, sympathy, good-will, and the 




cynicism. 



kindly deed that is always ready 
and on tap, is what expands, mul- 
tiplies and beautifies life. Hatred, 
ill-will, self-seeking, envy, and 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

jealousy is what dwarfs and stultifies. How 
instinctively all men and women are drawn 
to and seek the company of those whose lives 
are dominated by the former. How instinc- 
tively they shun and even despise the company 
of those who are embodiments of the latter. 
And this of itself speaks volumes as to which 
is the right or the wrong approach to life. 



April Thirtieth 

HE habit of taking a little time daily 
alone in the quiet, in communion 
with one's Source, that the illum- 
ination and guidance of the Holy 
Spirit may become alive and active in the life, 
and going then about one's daily work ever 
open to and conscious of this Divine guidance, 
strengthened and sustained always by this 
Divine power, will bring definiteness and di- 
rection, will bring hope and courage, and 
peace and power to every one who will heed 
the Master's injunction and will follow His 
example. These it has brought to great num- 
bers to whom before life was an enigma; and 
this because the life had been lived entirely 
from the outside. 

The higher forces and powers of the inner 
life, those of the mind and spirit, always po- 
-C 81 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

tential within, become of actual value only 
as they are recognized, realized, and used. 

The Master's Way of the Spirit, the find- 
ing of the Kingdom within, leads into no blind 
alley. It leads out and triumphantly out 
onto the great plain of clear vision, of unself- 
centred activity, of heroic endeavour and ac- 
complishment. 



May First 

HERE is a great law in connection 
with the coming of truth. It is 
this: Whenever a man or a wo- 
man shuts himself or herself to the 
entrance of truth on account of intellectual 
pride, preconceived opinions, prejudices, or 
for whatever reason, there is a great law 
which says that truth in its fulness will come 
to that one from no source. 

And on the other hand, when a man or a 
woman opens himself or herself fully to the 
entrance of truth from whatever source it may 
come, there is an equally great law which says 
that truth will flow in to him or to her from 
all sources, from all quarters. Such becomes 
the free man, the free woman, for it is the 
truth that makes us free. The other remains 
in bondage, for truth has had no invitation 
-C 82 y 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

and will not enter where it is not fully and 
freely welcomed. 




May Second 

IHERE truth is denied entrance the 
rich blessings it carries with it can- 
not take up their abode. On the 
contrary, when this is the case, it 
sends an envoy carrying with it atrophy, dis- 
ease, death, physically and spiritually as well 
as intellectually. And the man who would 
rob another of his free and unfettered search 
for truth, who would stand as the interpreter 
of truth for another, with the intent of re- 
maining in this position, rather than en- 
deavouring to lead him to the place where he 
can be his own interpreter, is more to be 
shunned than a thief and a robber. The in- 
jury he works is far greater, for he is doing 
direct and positive injury to the very life of 
the one he thus holds. 




May Third 

love and to hold reverence for all 
people and all things, but to stand 
in awe or fear of nothing save our 
own wrong-doing. 
< 83 > 



THROUCH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

May Fourth 

ISE are we if we do not allow any 
one thing, little or big, or still big- 
ger, to disappoint or to cloud or 
sour our lives and thereby to neu- 
tralize our energies, or even our hopes or our 
ambitions. 




May Fifth 

take and to live always in the at- 
titude of mind that compels glad- 
ness, looking for and thus drawing 
to us continually the best in all 
people and all things, being thereby the cre- 
ators of our own good fortunes. 







e^TI 




May Sixth 

EAR and lack of faith go hand in 
hand. The one is born of the 
other. Tell me how much one is 
given to fear, and I will tell you 
how much he lacks in faith. Fear is a most 
expensive guest to entertain, the same as worry 
is: so expensive are they that no one can af- 
ford to entertain them. We invite what we 
fear, the same as, by a different attitude of 
-C 84 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

mind, we invite and attract the influences and 
conditions we desire. The mind dominated 
by fear opens the door for the entrance of the 
very things, for the actualization of the very- 
conditions it fears. 

"Where are you going?" asked an Eastern 
pilgrim on meeting the plague one day. "I 
am going to Bagdad to kill five thousand peo- 
ple," was the reply. A few days later the 
same pilgrim met the plague returning. 
"You told me you were going to Bagdad to 
kill five thousand people," said he, "but in- 
stead, you killed fifty thousand." "No," said 
the plague, "/ killed only five thousand, as 
I told you I would; the others died of fright." 

Fear can paralyse every muscle in the body. 
Fear affects the flow of the blood, likewise the 
normal and healthy action of all the life 
forces. Fear can make the body rigid, mo- 
tionless, and powerless to move. 



May Seventh 




E who has the quest of the good in 
his heart relates himself thereby 
with all the higher powers and 
forces of the universe and they aid 



him at every turn. 

< 85 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



May Eighth 



==g 



T was Fenelon who said: "If the 
crowns of all the kingdoms of Eu- 
rope were laid down at my feet in 
exchange for my books and my love 
for reading, I would spurn them all." 

Of equal significance is the thought of 
Channing: "Books are the true levellers. 
They give to all who faithfully use them the 
society, the spiritual presence, of the best of 
our race." So great are our opportunities in 
this regard today, and yet so apt are we on 
account of the urge of so many things in con- 
nection with our modern life, to neglect them, 
that it is well to have recalled to us these 
thoughts of earlier men; for the best is now 
within the reach of every man, woman, and 
child. 



May Ninth 

UR love, our service, our helpful- 
ness to others, invariably comes 
back to us, intensified sometimes a 
hundred or a thousand or a thou- 
sand thousand fold, and this by a great, im- 
mutable law. 




-C 86 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




May Tenth 

| 'HOUGHT is the great builder in hu- 
man life: it is the determining 
factor. Continually think thoughts 
that are good, and your life will 
show forth in goodness, and your body in 
health and beauty. Continually think evil 
thoughts, and your life will show forth in evil, 
and your body in weakness and repulsiveness. 
Think thoughts of love, and you will love and 
will be loved. Think thoughts of hatred, and 
you will hate and will be hated. Each fol- 
lows its kind. 




May Eleventh 

E need changes from the duties and 
the cares of our accustomed every- 
day life. They are necessary for 
healthy, normal living. We need 
occasionally to be away from our friends, our 
relatives, from the members of our immediate 
households. Such changes are good for us; 
they are good for them. We appreciate them 
better, they us, when we are away from them 
for a period, or they from us. 

We need these changes to get the kinks out 
of our minds, our nerves, our muscles — the 
< 87 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

cobwebs off our faces. We need them to 
whet again the edge of appetite. We need 
them to invite the mind and the soul to new 
possibilities and powers. We need them in 
order to come back with new implements, or 
with implements redressed, sharpened, for the 
daily duties. 

We need periods of being by ourselves — 
alone. Sometimes a fortnight or even a week 
will do wonders for one, unless he or she has 
drawn too heavily upon the account. The 
simple custom, moreover, of taking an hour, 
or even a half hour, alone in the quiet, in the 
midst of the daily routine of life, would be the 
source of inestimable gain for countless num- 
bers. 



May Twelfth 

EACE lies not in the external world. 
It lies within one's own soul. We 
may travel over many different 
avenues in pursuit of it, we may 
seek it through the channels of the bodily ap- 
petites and passions, we may seek it through 
all the channels of the external, we may chase 
for it hither and thither, but it will always be 
just beyond our grasp, because we are search- 
ing for it where it is not. 

-C 88 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

In the degree, however, that we order the 
bodily appetites and passions in accordance 
with the promptings of the soul within will 
the higher forms of happiness and peace enter 
our lives ; but in the degree that we fail in do- 
ing this will disease, suffering, and discontent 
enter in. 



May Thirteenth 

F we have faith, if we have patience 
and perseverance, there is no con- 
dition, no experience that rightly 
viewed and rightly turned and used 
will not bring us stores of good. 




May Fourteenth 

HE chief characteristic of the gos- 
sip is that he or she prefers to live 
in the low-lying miasmic strata of 
life, revelling in the negatives of 
life and taking joy in finding and peddling 
about the findings that he or she naturally 
makes there. 




-C 89 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




May Fifteenth 

T rests upon each one to decide 
whether he or she will become a 
master or a creature of circum- 
stances. It depends upon the di- 
rection in which one sets his face, and how 
persistently he then follows the road upon 
which he enters. The facing in the right di- 
rection is the main thing. 

If, then, we have backbone and stamina 
and a fair degree of good cheer, which if per- 
sisted in will lead in time to a persistently 
merry heart all along the way, there can be but 
one outcome. 



May Sixteenth 

HERE is nothing by way of habit, 
character, even achievement that 
can get into a man's or a woman's 
life except through the avenue of 
his or her mental life. Search as carefully 
and as critically as we will, we will find no ex- 
ceptions to this rule. 




< 90 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

May Seventeenth 

HE amount of cream that appears 
in our lives depends, after all, 
more upon those types of thoughts 
that we choose and live most 

habitually with than upon anything else. 

These are our private property, and it is ours 

to regulate them as we will. 





May Eighteenth 
N old French proverb runs: 

"Some of your griefs you have cured, 
And the sharpest you still have 
survived, 

But what torments of pain you endured 
From evils that never arrived." 

Fear and lack of faith go hand in hand. 
The one is born of the other. Tell me how 
much one is given to fear, and I will tell you 
how much he lacks in faith. Fear is a most 
expensive guest to entertain, the same as 
worry is: so expensive are they that no one 
can afford to entertain them. We invite what 
we fear, the same as, by a different attitude of 
mind, we invite and attract the influences and 
conditions we desire. 



-C 91 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




May Nineteenth 

S anger inspires anger, as love and 
sympathy inspire love and sym- 
pathy in others, each of its kind, 
so cheerfulness and happiness in- 



spire the same in others. 



May Twentieth 




EVER give a moment to complaint, 
but utilize the time that would 
otherwise be spent in this way in 
looking forward and actualizing 
the conditions you desire. Suggest prosper- 
ity to yourself. See yourself in a prosper- 
ous condition. Affirm that you will before 
long be in a prosperous condition. Affirm 
it calmly and quietly, but strongly and con- 
fidently. Believe it, believe it absolutely. 
Expect it, — keep it continually watered with 
expectation. You thus make yourself a mag- 
net to attract the things that you desire. 



-C 92 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

May Twenty-first 

OD never made any man or any in- 
stitution a dispenser of truth or the 
custodian of the mental life of 
another. He instituted laws and 
forces whereby one man by ordering his life 
in accordance with the highest laws and forces 
of his being, living so to speak in the upper 
stories of his being, has become the revealer 
of truth and the exemplar of truth to other 
men. 

In the degree, however, that he has been 
worthy of receiving and successful in living, 
and thus in transmitting such revelations, in 
that degree has he kept his own personality 
in the background in order that the truth 
might be free from encumbrances now and 
from encrustations bye and bye. In other 
words, in the degree that he has loved truth 
more and self or self-aggrandizement less has 
he lost sight of himself in order that the truth 
might be unencumbered and freely and ef- 
fectively delivered. 

To hold undue reverence for or to stand in 
awe or fear of another is an exhibition, though 
perchance unconscious, of a lack of faith in 
or a degradation of our own native powers 
and forces, which if rightly unfolded and 
used might open to us revelations and lead us 
-C 93 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

to heights even beyond those of the one we 
mentally crouch before. 



May Twenty-second 




LL the frictions, all the uncertain- 
ties, all the ills, the sufferings, the 
fears, the forebodings, the per- 
plexities of life come to us because 
we are out of harmony with the divine order 
of things. They will continue to come as 
long as we so live. Rowing against the tide 
is hard and uncertain. To go with the tide 
and thus to take advantage of the working of 
a great natural force is safe and easy. 




May Twenty-third 

Y example and not by precept. 
By living, not by preaching. By 
doing, not by professing. By liv- 
ing the life, not by dogmatizing as 



to how it should be lived. 



-C 94 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



May Twenty -fourth 

F one hold himself in the thought of 
poverty, he will be poor, and the 
chances are that he will remain in 
poverty. If he hold himself, 
whatever present conditions may be, continu- 
ally in the thought of prosperity, he sets into 
operation forces that will sooner or later bring 
him into prosperous conditions. 





May Twenty-fifth 

HE starting point of habit-forming, 
character-building, in fact of every- 
thing that is desirable or undesir- 
able in life, is thought. Our 
every act — if we will look deeply enough — is 
preceded and given birth to by a thought, the 
act repeated forms in time the habit, the sum 
of one's habits determines and stamps his 
character, which means always, life, destiny. 
So we have it, — thought on the one hand, life, 
destiny, on the other. 

The thing to remember is that the thought 
is always parent to the act. There gets into 
our lives by way of habit exactly what we 
allow to get into it — and never more, never 
less. We are the designers and builders of 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

our own fortunes or ill-fortunes, whatever we 
may at times think to the contrary. 




May Twenty-sixth 

? is a simple psychological law that 
any type of thought if persisted in 
for a sufficient length of time, will 
finally reach the motor tracks of 
the brain and burst forth into action. One's 
thoughts, his prevailing mental, and through 
them emotional states, are always the antece- 
dents and the causes of his acts. There is 
scarcely an inmate of any of our prisons, or 
penal institutions of whatever type, today — 
man or woman — who has not gotten there 
through the operation of this law. Our 
thoughts determine our acts and therefore our 
lives, as well as the influences of our lives 
upon all about us, either by way of good or 
by way of hindrance, with absolute precision. 



May Twenty -seventh 

HE true psychological fact is that 
we have it in our power to deter- 
mine the types of thoughts, and the 
very thoughts, we entertain. Here 
let us refer to that law of the mind which is 
-C 96 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

in the main, the same as is the law in con- 
nection with the reflex nerve system of the 
body. In substance it is this : Whenever we 
do a certain thing in a certain way, it is just 
a little easier to do it in the same way the 
next time, and still a little easier the next, 
and the next, until the time comes when it no 
longer requires an effort — it does itself so 
to speak, and to do otherwise would require 
the effort. 

Here in a nut shell is the modus operandi 
of thought control, of mind mastery, of habit- 
forming, of character-building. It is not, one 
must freely admit, always easy at first — many 
times it is extremely difficult; but the law is 
accurate and absolute, and it will give us al- 
ways the inevitable result if we grasp it and 
apply it. 



May Twenty -eighth 

E have then, the power of determin- 
ing the thoughts we entertain — the 
thoughts that are invariably the de- 
terminers of every act and eventu- 
ally of every habit; and if there is difficulty at 
first — even exceeding great difficulty — we can 
avail ourselves of the law that will make this 
control continually easier. 
•C 97 y 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

The one thing then to do, is to stand master 
at the helm of thought, and the act and the 
habit will take care of themselves. It is sim- 
ply cause-effect. In this way and this way 
alone one's entire character is either formed 
or is remade. The consequence — the result 
— is a matter of tremendous importance, 
while the method, or rather, the law of its ac- 
complishment, is one of extreme simplicity. 



May Twenty-ninth 

N the matter of breaking away from 
a habit already formed, especially 
if one is for the time being under 
the domination, as we say, of that 
habit, — mental or physical — it is many times 
very difficult to keep the thought or the recur- 
rence of the thought out of the mind. The 
one safe rule of action, or the course of ac- 
tion that makes the accomplishment easier is, 
as quickly as the undesirable thought presents 
itself to put it out of the mind instantly; dal- 
liance with it, and thereby allowing it to as- 
sume larger proportions makes it continually 
harder to check it. 

That which at first is but a tiny flame, will 
grow if we act too tardily, into one of con- 
-C 98 > 





THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

suming proportions; and we will find our- 
selves under its domination again. 



May Thirtieth 

HILE it is true that we should get 
away from self-condemnation, it 
does not follow that we should get 
away from self-examination. Life 
is no mere child's-play, no mere long holiday, 
if we would build character and live lives 
worthy of the ideals of normal men and 
women, worthy of our day and generation, 
worthy of the admiration and esteem of 
friends and neighbours, lives that will bring 
us their richest returns as well as make us 
of greatest service to friend and neighbour, 
and to the stranger who continually crosses 
our path. 

Frequent self-examination is wise that we 
may check ourselves, or unfold and develop 
ourselves, along the lines of our greatest needs. 
We all have our faults, our failings, our un- 
desirable tendencies, and our undesirable 
habits, the same as we have our good points. 
The former we can push out of our lives — 
and along with them the losses they would in- 
evitably bring us — only by an alertness, by a 
certain quality of virility or of womanliness, 
-C 99 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

that makes us, as we sometimes say, sit up 
and think, and then, get up and do. 

So many times we lose the good we would 
attain by fearing to attempt, or through our 
sloth in not summoning up energy and initia- 
tive sufficient to begin. It was Goethe who 
said: 

Are you in earnest? Seize this very minute: 
What you can do, or dream you can, begin it; 

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. 
Only begin and then the mind grows heated; 

Begin and then the work will be completed. 



May Thirty-first 

[HERE is no such thing as Fate in 
the sense of something being fixed 
and thrown upon us from without. 
We decide our own Fate when we 
decide what order of thoughts we allow en- 
trance into and a dominating influence in our 
lives. Each decides for himself his own des- 
tiny whatever any one may say to the con- 
trary. It was Emerson who said: "Deal 
with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. 
In the Will work and acquire, and thou hast 
chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt always 
drag her after thee." 

-ooo:> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

June First 

HOSE who have gone after, or pri- 
marily after, the mere accessories 
of life, in distinction from or to 
the detriment of the life itself — 
the things of the mind and the spirit — and the 
things therefore of eternal value, have come 
back with the keenest of disappointments. 




June Second 

HAVE unbounded sympathy — 
through the channel of my mem- 
ory — for the one who is struggling 
to be free from any undesirable 
habit. So must every one of us if his mem- 
ory isn't too short, and if he be honest with 
himself. But if one inadvertently is under 
the domination of any habit, this struggling 
is good — good for himself and good for 
others — in that it will give him in turn that 
royal quality of sympathy. 

When we are able actually to place our- 
selves in the other fellow's place, we are then 
really capable of this kingly quality. We 
are then also wiser and more useful because 
of our wider view point. We are then slow, 
exceedingly slow, to judge another, and never 
fool or knave enough to condemn. In our 
-C101> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

present state of incompleteness, and not 
knowing the great and heroic struggles that 
may be going on and that for him eventually 
undoubtedly will win, we will give that same 
time to occasional self-examination and to 
living more worthily ourselves. 




in the world. 



June Third 

T is the man or the woman of faith, 
and hence of courage, who is 
the master of circumstances, and 
who makes his or her power felt 




June Fourth 

ROWTH through discipline is one 
of the great facts of life. Unques- 
tionably Henry Drummond was 
right when he said: "Sooner or 
later we find out that life is not a holiday, but 
discipline. Earlier or later we all discover 
that the world is not a playground. It is 
quite clear God means it for a school. The 
moment we forget that, the puzzle of life be- 
gins." And although he was right, who shall 
say other than that we should be always as 
happy as we can be, while the school keeps. 
-C 102 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

June Fifth 

make the best of present condi- 
tions, to form and clearly see one's 
ideal, though it may seem distant 
and almost impossible, to believe 
in it, and to believe in one's ability to actu- 
alize it — this is the first essential of all real 
attainment. 





June Sixth 

ISE is he who determines early to do 
away with the companionship of the 
two great filchers of the best there 
is in life. To determine resolutely 
to bid good-bye to fear and worry, opening all 
doors and windows to hope, and faith, and 
courage, and then coupling with this rightly 
directed effort, will work a complete revolu- 
tion in any life. To take the attitude of 
cheerfulness, looking always on the bright 
side of things, determined to hold one's self al- 
ways in an optimistic, never-down-in-the- 
mouth, but courage-always-up attitude of mind 
and heart, is to set into operation those silent, 
subtle forces that will be working continually 
along the lines we are going. 

It is not therefore, What are the conditions 
-C 103 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

in any life? — but how one meets the condi- 
tions that are found there that determines his 
real stamina and worth, and that determines 
his real success or failure. 



June Seventh 




OME one has said: "The first 
step toward happiness is to deter- 
mine to be happy." To get up 
each morning determined to be 
happy, to take anew this attitude of mind 
whenever the dark or doleful thought pre- 
sents itself, is to set our own conditions to the 
events of each day. It is thus that we condi- 
tion circumstances instead of allowing our- 
selves to be conditioned by them. 



June Eighth 

HERE is one thing we can always 
rest assured of — the prevailing 
mental states and emotions at 
thirty-five and forty-five will have 
stamped their influences and will have deter- 
mined the prevailing conditions in any life 
at fifty-five and sixty-five. The only way to 
come into a happy, well-balanced, and there- 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

fore joyous and welcome old age, is to come 
to it through the avenues of the right mental 
habits of youth and middle age. 



June Ninth 




I HE whole of human life is cause 
and effect; there is no such thing 
in it as chance, nor is there even in 
all the wide universe. Are we not 
satisfied with whatever comes into our lives? 
The thing to do, then, is not to spend time in 
railing against the imaginary something we 
create and call fate, but to look to the within, 
and change the causes at work there, in order 
that things of a different nature may come, 
for there will come exactly what we cause to 
come. 



June Tenth 




HE day is the unit of life. A writer 
of keen insight has said: "Any 
one can carry his burden, however 
heavy, till nightfall. Any one can 
do his work, however hard, for one day. Any 
one can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, 
purely, till the sun goes down — and this is all 
that life ever really means." 
<10S> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

Life is not so complex if we do not persist 
in making it so. We can simplify it a great 
deal more than we do. Emerson undoubt- 
edly had this in mind when he said: "Just 
to fill the hour — that is happiness. Fill my 
hour, ye gods, so that I shall not say, whilst 
I have done this, 'Behold, also, an hour of my 
life is gone' — but rather, 'I have lived an 
hour.' " 




June Eleventh 

E can be men and women of power 
or we can be men and women of 
impotence. The moment one vi- 
tally grasps the fact that he, can 
rise he will rise, and he can have absolutely 
no limitations other than the limitations he 
sets to himself. Cream always rises to the 
top. It rises simply because it is the nature 
of cream to rise. 



June Twelfth 

AITH, absolute dogmatic faith, is 
the final law of true success. 
When we recognize the fact that a 
man carries his success or his fail- 
ure with him, and that it does not depend 
-C106> 



H WJF& 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

upon outside conditions, we will come into 
the possession of powers that will quickly 
change outside conditions into agencies that 
make for success. 



June Thirteenth 

FRIEND who knows the power of 
the interior forces, and whose life 
is guided in every detail by them, 
has given a suggestion in this form : 
When you are in the arms of the bear, even 
though he is hugging you, look him in the face 
and laugh, but all the time keep your eye on 
the bull. 

If you allow all of your attention to be 
given to the work of the bear, the bull may 
get entirely out of your sight. In other 
words, if you yield to adversity the chances 
are that it will master you, but if you recog- 
nize in yourself the power of mastery over con- 
ditions then adversity will yield to you, and 
will be changed into prosperity. If when it 
comes you calmly and quietly recognize it, 
and use the time that might otherwise be spent 
in regrets, and fears, and forebodings, in set- 
ting into operation the powerful forces within 
you, it will soon take its leave. 

< 107 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

June Fourteenth 

KNOWLEDGE of the Spiritual 
Power working in and through us 
as well as in and through all 
things, a power that works for 
righteousness, leads to optimism. Pessimism 
leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power. 
There is nothing firmer, and safer, and 
surer than Deity. Then, as we recognize the 
fact that we have it in our own hands to open 
ourselves ever more fully to this Infinite 
Power, and call upon it to manifest itself in 
and through us, we will find in ourselves an 
ever increasing sense of power. 




June Fifteenth 

OD give us more of the people who 
set about definitely and actively to 
cultivate the habit of happiness, 
people the corners of whose mouths 
are turned chronically up and not down, peo- 
ple who are looking for and who are inspiring 
and calling forth the best from all. The dis- 
agreeable things that fill such a large portion 
of the lives of many, seldom it seems, present 
themselves to those of this trend of mind and 
heart. 

There are people who, when they go into 
-C108> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

an orchard, seem to have the faculty of finding 
chiefly the little, the gnarled, even the partly 
decayed specimens of fruit. Others go in 
even on the same day and under the same 
trees, and seem to have the faculty of finding 
splendid, beautifully developed and beauti- 
fully coloured specimens. It is true after all 
that in life and in people we find mostly that 
that we are looking for. 



June Sixteenth 

IFE is not for mere passing pleas- 
ure, but for the highest unfold- 
ment that one can attain to, the 
noblest character that one can grow, 
and for the greatest service that one can ren- 
der to all mankind. In this, however, we will 
find the highest pleasure, for in this the only 
real pleasure lies. 

He who would find it by any short cuts, or 
by entering upon any other paths, will in- 
evitably find that his last state is always worse 
than his first; and if he proceed upon paths 
other than these he will find that he will never 
find real and lasting pleasure at all. 



-C 109 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



June Seventeenth 




HEN we come fully to realize the 
great fact that all evil and er- 
ror and sin with all their conse- 
quent sufferings come through ig- 
norance, then wherever we see a manifesta- 
tion of these in whatever form, if our hearts 
are right, we will have compassion, sympathy 
and compassion for the one in whom we see 
them. Compassion will then change itself 
into love, and love will manifest itself in 
kindly service. Such is the divine method. 




June Eighteenth 

NY one — a fool or an idiot— can be 
exclusive. It comes easy. It takes 
and it signifies a large nature to be 
universal, to be inclusive. 
Only the man or the woman of a small, 
personal, self-centred, self-seeking nature is 
exclusive. The man or the woman of a large, 
royal, unself-centred nature never is. The 
small nature is the one that continually strives 
for effect. The larger nature never does. 



-C110 3- 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



June Nineteenth 




ERE is a lesson I have learned: 
whatever conditions are in my life 
today that are not the easiest and 
most agreeable, and whatever con- 
ditions of this type all coming time may bring, 
I will take them just as they come, without 
complaint, without depression, and meet them 
in the wisest possible way; knowing that they 
are the best possible conditions that could be 
in my life at the time, or otherwise they would 
not be there; realizing the fact that, although 
I may not at the time see why they are in my 
life, although I may not see just what part 
they have to play, the time will come, and 
when it comes I will see it all, and thank God 
for every condition just as it came. 

Everything that comes into each life has its 
place and its purpose, its part to play, and 
were it not necessary or were it not good in the 
long run that it come it would not come. 



June Twentieth 

N order that we may get some 
greater evidences of certainty of 
what Jesus' primal or fundamental 
teaching was, upon which he was 
desirous that everything else rest, let us note 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

the following. One day when he was teach- 
ing a group around him, numerous questions 
were asked him. We are told that then a cer- 
tain lawyer arose. A lawyer was a scribe, or 
an interpreter and teacher of the Ecclesiastical 
Law and observances. His question was: 
"Master, which is the great commandment in 
the law?" Jesus said unto him, "Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 
This is the first and great commandment. 
And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt 
love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two 
commandments hang all the law and the 
prophets." How truly fundamental this be- 
comes of Jesus' purpose, mission, and teach- 
ings when coupled with the announcement: 
"Think not that I am come to destroy the law, 
or the prophets : I am not come to destroy, but 
to fulfil." 

The Fatherhood of God means, according 
to Jesus' teachings, the Divine Sonship of man, 
and from the Sonship flows the inevitable 
Brotherhood. 



p -c 112 y 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

June Twenty-first 

INCOLN, who was unquestionably- 
one of the most profoundly reli- 
gious men our country has known, 
one of the greatest of Christians, 
although a member of no church, on being 
asked why he did not unite with some church 
organization, replied: "Because I find diffi- 
culty in giving my assent, without mental 
reservation, to the complicated statements of 
Christian doctrine which constitute their 
articles of belief and confessions of faith. 

"When any church will inscribe over its 
altar, as its sole qualification of membership, 
the Saviour's condensed statement of the sub- 
stance of both law and gospel: Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and 
thy neighbour as thyself, that church shall I 
join with all my heart and soul." 

"On religious matters he thought deeply," 
says Lamon, his friend and biographer, "and 
his opinions were positive. He was by na- 
ture religious, full of religious sentiment. He 
had a sagacity almost instinctive in sifting 
the false from the true. He was ever seeking 
the right, the real, and the true." 

-C113> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



June Twenty-second 





-^=r 



of many of the 
prone to worry 



HE best feature 
troubles we are 

about is the fact that most of them 

never come. It was Lowell who 

"Let us be of good cheer, remember- 

the misfortunes hardest to bear are 



said: 

ing that 

those that never come." 

The one who allows himself to be dom- 
inated by neither fears nor forebodings, who 
does not allow his energies to be crippled 
thereby, and who gives no place to their cor- 
roding and poisoning influences, puts himself 
in that positive attitude of mind that seems to 
neutralize the disagreeable influences before 
they can touch him ; and on the other hand he 
attracts to himself, through the great law of 
the drawing power of mind, which is that 
like attracts like, the influences and conditions 
he most desires. 




forces 



June Twenty-third 

HE moment that we come into a re- 
alization of our true selves, and so 
of the tremendous powers and 
forces within, — the powers and 
the mind and spirit, — hereditary 
-C114> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

traits and influences that are harmful in na- 
ture will begin to lessen, and will disappear 
with a rapidity directly in proportion to the 
completeness of this realization. 



June Twenty -fourth 

T is the man or the woman of faith, 
and hence of courage, who is the 
master of circumstances, and who 
makes his or her power felt in the 
world. It is the man or the woman who 
lacks faith and who as a consequence is weak- 
ened and crippled by fears and forebodings, 
who is the creature of all passing occurrences. 




June Twenty-fifth 




OT repression, but elevation. A 
knowledge of the spiritual realities 
of life prohibits asceticism, repres- 
sion, the same as it prohibits li- 
cense and perverted use. To err on the one 
side is just as contrary to the ideal life as to 
err on the other. All things are for a pur- 
pose, all should be used and enjoyed; but all 
should be rightly used, that they may be fully 
enjoyed. 

It is the all-around, fully developed we 
-C115> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

want, — not the ethereal, pale-blooded man and 
woman, but the man and woman of flesh and 
blood, for action and service here and now, — 
the man and woman strong and powerful, with 
all the faculties and functions fully unfolded 
and used, all in a royal and bounding condi- 
tion, but all rightly subordinated. The man 
and the woman of this kind, with the imperial 
hand of mastery upon all, — standing, moving 
thus like a king, nay, like a very God, — such 
is the man and such is the woman of power. 
Such is the ideal life: anything else is one- 
sided, and falls short of it. 



June Twenty-sixth 




' example and not by precept. By 
living, not by preaching. By do- 
ing, not by professing. By living 
the life, not by dogmatizing as to 
how it should be lived. There is no con- 
tagion equal to the contagion of life. What- 
ever we sow, that shall we also reap, and each 
thing sown produces of its kind. We can 
kill not only by doing another bodily injury 
directly, but we can and we do kill by every 
antagonistic thought. Not only do we thus 
kill, but while we kill we suicide. Many a 
man has been made sick by having the ill 
< 116 > ' 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

thoughts of a number of people centred upon 
him; some have been actually killed. Put 
hatred into the world and we make it a literal 
hell. Put love into the world and heaven 
with all its beauties and glories becomes a 
reality. 

Not to love is not to live, or it is to live a 
living death. The life that goes out in love 
to all is the life that is full, and rich, and con- 
tinually expanding in beauty and in power. 
Such is the life that becomes ever more in- 
clusive, and hence larger in its scope and in- 
fluence. 



June Twenty -seventh 

ELF-CONDEMNATION with its al- 
lied thoughts and emotions has 
been productive of a far greater 
loss in initiative, in will-power, 
and of a far greater degree of lowered vital- 
ity, both mental and physical, than any of us 
have perhaps realized. 





June Twenty -eighth 

N the degree that we love will we 

be loved. Thoughts are forces 

and each creates of its kind. Each 

comes back laden with the effect 

-C117 3- 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

that corresponds to itself and of which it is 
the cause. 

"Then let your secret thoughts be fair — - 
They have a vital part, and share 
In shaping words and moulding fate; 
God's system is so intricate." 

If our heart goes out in love to all with 
whom we come in contact, we inspire love and 
the same ennobling and warming influences 
of love always return to us from those in 
whom we inspire them. There is a deep sci- 
entific principle underlying the precept — If 
you would have all the world love you, you 
must first love all the world. 



June Twenty -ninth 

EAR paralyses healthy action, men- 
tal and physical. Worry corrodes, 
poisons and pulls down the organ- 
ism. It is a perverted mental 
state that externalizes itself in various physi- 
cal ailments according to the peculiar ten- 
dencies or weaknesses of the one in whose or- 
ganism its effects find lodgment. 




"-c 118 y 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

June Thirtieth 

ILL is the steady directing power: 
it is concentration. It is the pilot 
which, after the vessel is started by 
the mighty force within, puts it on 
its right course and keeps it true to that 
course. Will is the sun-glass which so con- 
centrates and so focuses the sun's rays that 
they quickly burn a hole through the paper 
that is held before it. The same rays, not 
thus concentrated, not thus focused, would fall 
upon the paper for days without any effect 
whatever. Will is the means for the direct- 
ing, the concentrating, the focusing, of the 
thought-forces. 

Thought under wise direction, — this it is 
that does the work, that brings results, that 
makes the successful career. One object in 
mind which we never lose sight of; an ideal 
steadily held before the mind, never lost sight 
of, never lowered, never swerved from, — this, 
with persistence, determines all. Nothing 
can resist the power of thought, when thus di- 
rected by will. 



< 119 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




July First 

N the degree that we work in con- 
junction with the Supreme Power 
do we need the less to concern our- 
selves about results. 



July Second 




OTHING is more subtle than 
thought, nothing more powerful, 
nothing more irresistible in its op- 
erations, when rightly applied and 
held to with a faith and fidelity that is un- 
swerving, — a faith and fidelity that never 
knows the neutralizing effects of doubt and 
fear. If one have aspirations and a sincere 
desire for a higher and better condition, so 
far as advantages, facilities, associates, or 
any surroundings or environments are con- 
cerned, and if he continually send out his 
highest thought forces for the realization of 
these desires, and continually water these 
forces with firm expectation as to their fulfil- 
ment, he will sooner or later find himself in 
the realization of these desires, and all in ac- 
cordance with natural laws and forces. 

We are born to be neither slaves nor beg- 
gars, but to dominion and to plenty. This 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

is our rightful heritage, if we will but recog- 
nize and lay claim to it. 



July Third 

HE power of every life, the very life 
itself, is determined by what it re- 
lates itself to. God is immanent 
as well as transcendent. He is cre- 
ating, working, ruling in the universe today, 
in your life and in mine, just as much as He 
ever has been. We are too apt to regard Him 
after the manner of an absentee landlord, one 
who has set in operation the forces of this 
great universe, and then taken Himself away. 
In the degree, however, that we recognize 
Him as immanent as well as transcendent, are 
we able to partake of His life and power. 
For in the degree that we recognize Him as 
the Infinite Spirit of Life and Power that is 
today, at this very moment, working and 
manifesting in and through all, and then, in 
the degree that we come into the realization 
of our oneness with this life, do we become 
partakers of, and so do we actualize in our- 
selves the qualities of this life. In the degree 
that we open ourselves to the inflowing tide 
of this immanent and transcendent life, do we 
-C121> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

make ourselves channels through which the In- 
finite Intelligence and Power can work. 



July Fourth 

HE most interesting feature of 
worry, as well as the most aston- 
ishing when we examine carefully 
into it, is the fact that through it 

nothing is ever to be gained, but on the other 

hand, everything is to be lost. 





July Fifth 

T'S natural for me to worry," says 
one, "and I can't help it." The 
first part of the statement may be 
true in many cases. Nonsense, 
should be the reply always to the latter part 
of it. If you think you can't help it, and if 
you persist in this thought, the chances are 
that you can't, and there is perhaps then no 
hope for you. But take the other thought, 
take the thought that you can help it, realize 
once for all that you can and determine that 
you will, and if you keep your mind true to 
that idea and to that purpose, it is simply a 
matter of time until you will have taken your- 
< 122 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

self entirely out of the class of the "afraids. 
the "get-no-wheres." 



July Sixth 

MIND always hopeful, confident, 
courageous, and determined on its 
set purpose, and keeping itself to 
that purpose, attracts to itself out 

of the elements things and powers favourable 

to that purpose. 




July Seventh 




EST we are now finding does not 
depend necessarily upon a cessa- 
tion of activities, but sometimes a 
change of work or activity is fully 
as effective. It is the time we spend alone 
that has to do with the great realities of life, 
and these are the things that after all really 
count. They, it is, that eventually bring real 
and lasting satisfaction. To take this quiet 
period every day enables us to get hold more 
and more of those interior, spiritual, thought 
forces that we can and should infuse into, and 
mould the conditions of everyday life with. 
It also aids us to find and to keep our con- 
scious connection with the Infinite Source 
<\2$> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

of life and power that is back of all, working 
in and through all, in the degree that we open 
ourselves that it may manifest to and through 
us. 

It is idle for any one, be she busy home- 
maker or be he busy man of affairs, to say 
it is impossible to get this quiet hour or half 
hour a day. If the desire is really there it 
can always be accomplished. And for one to 
say that he or she cannot afford it, is to speak 
without sufficient knowledge. There is no 
one when its value is once fully or even par- 
tially realized, who can afford to do otherwise. 



July Eighth 

GNORANCE enchains and enslaves. 
Truth — which is but another way of 
saying a clear and definite knowl- 
edge of Law, the elemental laws of 
soul, of mind, and body, and of the universe 
about us — brings freedom. Jesus revealed 
essentially a spiritual philosophy of life. 
His whole revelation pertained to the essen- 
tial divinity of the human soul and the great 
gains that would follow the realization of this 
fact. His whole teaching revolved continu- 
ally around his own expression, used again 
and again, the Kingdom of God, or the King- 
-C124> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

dom of Heaven, and which he so distinctly 
stated was an inner state or consciousness or 
realization. Something not to be found out- 
side of one's self but to be found only within. 




July Ninth 

OR true worship, only God and the 
human soul are necessary. It does 
not depend upon times, or seasons, 
or occasions. 



July Tenth 




APPY is the young man or the young 
woman who, while the bulk of life 
still lies ahead, realizes that it is 
the things of the mind and the 
spirit — the fundamental things in life — that 
really count; that here lie the forces that are 
to be understood and to be used in moulding 
the everyday conditions and affairs of life; 
that the springs of life are all from within, 
that as is the inner so always and inevitably 
will be the outer. 



-C 125 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




July Eleventh 

F one thing we can rest assured; 
nothing in the universe, nothing in 
connection with human life is out- 
side of the Realm of Law. The 
elemental law of Cause and Effect is ab- 
solute in its workings. One of the great laws 
pertaining to human life is: As is the inner, 
so always and inevitably is the outer — Cause, 
Effect. Our thoughts and emotions are the 
silent, subtle forces that are constantly exter- 
nalizing themselves in kindred forms in our 
outward material world. Like creates like, 
and like attracts like. As is our prevailing 
type of thought, so is our prevailing type and 
our condition of life. 




July Twelfth 

HE type of thought we entertain has 
its effect upon our energies and to 
a great extent upon our bodily con- 
ditions and states. Strong, clear- 
cut, positive, hopeful thought has a stimulat- 
ing and life-giving effect upon one's outlook, 
energies, and activities; and upon all bodily 
functions and powers. A falling state of the 
mind induces a chronically gloomy outlook 
and produces inevitably a falling condition of 
<126> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

the body. The mind grows, moreover, into 
the likeness of the thoughts one most habitu- 
ally entertains and lives with. Every thought 
reproduces of its kind. 




July Thirteenth 

LL the frictions, uncertainties, ills, 
sufferings, fears, forebodings, and 
perplexities of life come to us be- 
cause we are out of harmony with 



the divine order of things. 




modern 



July Fourteenth 

establish one's centre aright is to 
make all of life's ■ activities and 
events and results flow from this 
centre in orderly sequence. A 

writer of great insight has said: 



"The understanding that God is, and all there 
is, will establish you upon a foundation from 
which you can never be moved." To know 
that the power that is God is the power that 
works in us is knowledge of transcendent im- 
port. 

To know that the spirit of Infinite wisdom 
and power which is the creating, the moving, 
< 127 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

and the sustaining force in all life, thinks and 
acts in and through us as our own very life, 
in the degree that we consciously and delib- 
erately desire it to become the guiding and the 
animating force in our lives, and open our- 
selves fully to its leadings, and follow its 
leadings, is to attain to that state of conscious 
oneness with the Divine that Jesus realized, 
lived and revealed, and that he taught as the 
method of the natural and the normal life for 
all men. 



July Fifteenth 

UR prevailing thought forces deter- 
mine the mental atmosphere we 
create around us, and all who come 
within its influence are affected in 

one way or another, according to the quality of 

that atmosphere. 




July Sixteenth 

VERY general rule with but few 
exceptions can be laid down as fol- 
lows: The body ordinarily looks 
as old as the mind thinks and feels. 
Shakespeare anticipated by many years the 
best psychology of the times when he said: 
"It is the mind that makes the body rich." 
-C128> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

It seems to me that our great problem, or 
rather our chief concern, should not be so 
much how to stay young in the sense of pos- 
sessing all the attributes of youth, for the 
passing of the years does bring changes, but 
how to pass gracefully, and even magnifi- 
cently, and with undiminished vigour from 
youth to middle age, and then how to carry 
that middle age into approaching old age, 
with a great deal more of the vigour and the 
outlook of middle life than we ordinarily do. 



July Seventeenth 




ENTALLY to live in any state or at- 
titude of mind is to take that state or 
condition into the subconscious. 
The subconscious mind does and 
always will produce in the body after its own 
kind. It is through this law that we external- 
ize and become in body what we live in our 
minds. If we have predominating visions of 
and harbour thoughts of old age and weak- 
ness, this state, with all its attendant circum- 
stances, will become externalized in our bodies 
far more quickly than if we entertain thoughts 
and visions of a different type. Said the late 
Archdeacon Wilberforce in a notable address 
in Westminster Abbey: "The recent re- 
*C129> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

searches of scientific men, endorsed by ex- 
periments in the Salpetriere in Paris, have 
drawn attention to the intensely creative power 
of suggestions made by the conscious mind to 
the subconscious mind." 



July Eighteenth 

HE small nature is the one that con- 
tinually strives for effect. The 
larger nature never does. The one 
goes here and there in order to gain 
recognition, in order to attach himself to the 
world. The other stays at home and draws 
the world to him. 





July Nineteenth 

ELL me how much one loves and I 
will tell you how much he has seen 
of God. Tell me how much he 
loves and I will tell you how much 
he lives with God. Tell me how much he 
loves and I will tell you how far into the King- 
dom of Heaven, — the kingdom of harmony, 
he has entered, for "love is the fulfilling of 
the law." Love inspires love; hatred breeds 
hatred. Love and good will stimulate and 
-C130> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

build up the body; hatred and malice corrode 
and tear it down. Love is a savour of life 
unto life; hatred is a savour of death unto 
death. 

"There are loyal hearts, there are spirits brave, 
There are souls that are pure and true; 

Then give to the world the best you have, 
And the best will come back to you. 

"Give love, and love to your heart will flow, 

A strength in your utmost need; 
Have faith, and a score of hearts will show 

Their faith in your word and deed." 



July Twentieth 

E concern ourselves habitually with 
so many things that we really do 
not have to concern ourselves with. 
We concern ourselves with so many 
small matters of mere detail, instead of con- 
cerning ourselves primarily with the funda- 
mentals, and allowing the matters of detail to 
fall in place sort of naturally and of their own 
accord. The one given to fear or worry con- 
cerns himself or herself with a hundred things 
every day, and some even every night, that 
there is not the slightest reason for concern- 
ing one's self with at all. In a simple homely 

-cm:)- 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

way John Vance Cheney put a great truth 
along this line when he said : 

"The happiest heart that ever beat 

Was in some quiet breast, 
That found the common daylight sweet, 

And left to Heaven the rest." 



July Twenty-first 

F you would find the highest, the 
fullest, and the richest life that not 
only this world but that any world 
can know, then do away with the 

sense of separateness of your life from the 

life of God. 





July Twenty-second 

follow the higher leadings of the 
soul, which is so constituted that it 
is the inlet, and as a consequence 
the outlet of Divine Spirit, Crea- 
tive Energy, the real source of all wisdom 
and power; to project its leadings into every 
phase of material activity and endeavour, con- 
stitutes the ideal life. It was Emerson who 
said: "Every soul is not only the inlet, but 
may become the outlet of all there is in God." 
To keep this inlet open, so as not to shut out 
< 132 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

the Divine inflow, is the secret of all higher 
achievement, as well as attainment. 



July Twenty-third 

HE hopeful, confident, successful 
type of thought not only attracts to 
us success, but it also attracts to us 
successful Deople, those whose lives 

are dominated by the same type or trend of 

thought. 





July Twenty -fourth 

S there a great deal of work that each 
day brings? It is good if it is done 
rightly, and with the right mental 
attitude toward it. That we work 
is one of the laws of life. No one can be 
happy without it. There are thousands today 
who are unhappy and ill at ease, to whom life 
seems even a burden, who could change all 
these conditions if they had something definite 
and useful regularly to do. But here it is 
the middle ground, as is true in all phases of 
life. It is true of this the same as it is true 
of pleasure. It is always the middle ground 
that brings happiness and satisfaction — 
-C133> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

neither asceticism on the one hand, nor over- 
indulgence on the other. 

For most of us there will always be work 
to do; but Ruskin lifts a curtain when he 
says: "Pleasure comes through toil and not 
by self-indulgence and indolence. When one 
gets to love work his life is a happy one." 



July Twenty -fifth 

HE greatest thing ever known — in- 
deed, the greatest thing that ever 
can be known — is that in our real 
essential nature we are one with the 
Infinite Life and Power, and that by coming 
into, and dwelling continually in, the con- 
scious, living realization of this great fact, we 
enable to be manifested unto us and actualized 
within us the qualities and powers of the Di- 
vine Life, and this in the exact degree of the 
completeness of this realization on our part. 
If we would win the best, we must early get 
rightly related to the Source of Life, and in 
the degree that we preserve our right relation 
to it, life flows on in a natural, orderly man- 
ner, and with a continually increasing un- 
foldment and growth. 

-C134> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



July Twenty-sixth 




E need more faith in everyday life 
— faith in the power that works for 
good, faith in the Infinite God, and 
hence faith in ourselves created in 
His image. And however things at times 
may seem to go, however dark at times ap- 
pearances may be, the knowledge of the fact 
that "the Supreme Power has us in its charge 
as it has the suns and endless systems of 
worlds in space," will give us the supreme 
faith that all is well with us, the same as all is 
well with the world. "Thou wilt keep him in 
perfect peace whose mind is stayed on Thee." 
There is nothing firmer, and safer, and 
surer than Deity. Then, as we recognize the 
fact that we have it in our own hands to open 
ourselves ever more fully to this Infinite 
Power, and call upon it to manifest itself in 
and through us, we will find in ourselves an 
ever increasing sense of power. For in this 
way we are working in conjunction with it, and 
it in turn is working in conjunction with us. 
We are then led into the full realization of 
the fact that all things work together for good 
to those that love the good. 



-C135> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

July Twenty -seventh 

T is better and more honest to be- 
lieve that we determine our own 
fate, and then set about in a manly 
or a womanly fashion to carry this 
belief into practice, than to rail against an 
imaginary something we create and call Fate. 





July Twenty-eighth 

HOUGHT is at the bottom of all 
progress or retrogression, of all 
success or failure, of all that is de- 
sirable or undesirable in human 
life. The type of thought we entertain both 
creates and draws conditions that crystallize 
about it, conditions exactly the same in nature 
as is the thought that gives them form. 
For one to take time to see clearly the things 
one would attain to, and then to hold that ideal 
steadily and continually before his mind, 
never allowing faith — his positive thought- 
forces — to give way to or to be neutralized by 
doubts and fears, and then to set about doing 
each day what his hands find to do, never 
complaining, but spending the time that he 
would otherwise spend in complaint in fo- 
cusing his thought-forces upon the ideal that 
his mind has built, will sooner or later bring 
<136> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

about the full materialization of that for which 
he sets out. 



July Twenty-ninth 

S there a great deal of work that 
each day brings? It is good if it 
is done rightly, and with the right 
mental attitude toward it. That 
we work is one of the laws of life. No one 



_ 



can be happy without it. 




July Thirtieth 

OULD you remain young, and would 
you carry all the joyousness and 
buoyancy of youth into your ma- 
turer years? Then have care con- 
cerning but one thing, — how you live in your 
thought world. It was the inspired one, 
Gautama, the Buddha, who said, — "The mind 
is everything; what you think you become." 
And the same thing had Ruskin in mind when 
he said, — "Make yourselves nests of pleasant 
thoughts. None of us as yet know, for none 
of us have been taught in early youth, what 
fairy palaces we may build of beautiful 
thought — proof against all adversity." 

And would you have in your body the 
-C137^ 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



strength and the beauty of your younger 
years? Then live these in your mind, making 
no room for unclean thought, and you will ex- 
ternalize them in your body. In the degree 
that you keep young in thought will you re- 
main young in body. And you will find that 
your body will in turn aid your mind, for 
body helps mind the same as mind helps 
body. 

July Thirty-first 

RUE enjoyment lies always along 
that royal middle ground — the use 
of all functions and powers, but 
with the imperial hand of mastery 

upon all. Otherwise there are always heavy 

penalties to pay. 




August First 

"The poem hangs on the berry-bush 

When comes the poet's eye, 
And the whole street is a masquerade 

When Shakespeare passes by." 

HIS same Shakespeare, whose mere 
passing causes all this commotion, 
is the one who put into the mouth 
of one of his creations the words: 
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, 
-C138> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

but in ourselves, that we are underlings." 
And again he gave us a great truth when he 
said : 

"Our doubts are traitors, 

And make us lose the good we oft might win 

By fearing to attempt." 

There is probably no agent that brings us 
more undesirable conditions than fear. We 
should live in fear of nothing, nor will we 
when we come fully to know ourselves. 



August Second 

S a nation we do not share in the 
belief that the state is above moral- 
ity, but rather that identically the 
same moral ideals, precepts and 
obligations that bind individuals must be held 
sacred by the state, otherwise it becomes a 
pirate among nations, and it will inevitably 
in time be hunted down and destroyed as such, 
however great its apparent power. 

Nor do we as a nation share in the belief 
that war is necessary and indeed good for a 
nation, to inspire and to preserve its manly 
qualities, its virility, and therefore its power. 
Were this the only way that this could be 
brought about, it might be well and good ; but 
the price to be paid is a price that is too enor- 
-C 139 > 





THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

mous and too frightful, and the results are too 
uncertain. We believe that these same ideals 
can be inculcated, that these same energies 
can be used along useful, conserving, con- 
structive lines, rather than along lines of de- 
struction. 



August Third 

NATION may have the most colos- 
sal and perfect military system in 
the world, and still may suffer de- 
feat in any given while, because of 
those unseen things that pertain to the soul of 
another people, whereby powers and forces 
are engendered and materialized that make de- 
feat for them impossible; and in the matter of 
big guns, it is well always to remember that 
no nation can build them so great that another 
nation may not build them still greater. Na- 
tional safety does not necessarily lie in that 
direction. Nor, on the other hand, along the 
lines of extreme pacificism — surely not as 
long as things are as they are. The argument 
of the lamb has small deterrent effect upon the 
wolf — as long as the wolf is a wolf. And 
sometimes wolves hunt in packs. 

The most pre-eminent lesson of the great 
war for us as a nation should be this — there 
<U0> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

should be constantly a degree of preparedness 
sufficient to hold until all the others, the vari- 
ous portions of the nation, thoroughly co-or- 
dinated and ready, can be summoned into ac- 
tion. Thus are we prepared, thus are we safe, 
and there is no danger or fear of militarism. 



August Fourth 

UR period of isolation is over. We 
have become a world-nation. 
Equality of rights presupposes 
equality of duty. In our very 
souls we loathe militarism. Conquest and 
aggression are foreign to our spirit, and for- 
eign to our thoughts and ambitions. But 
weakness will by no means assure us immun- 
ity from aggression from without. 

Universal military training up to a reason- 
able point, and the joint sense of responsibil- 
ity of every man and every woman in the na- 
tion, and the right of the national government 
to expect and to demand that every man and 
woman stand ready to respond to the call to 
service, whatever form it may take — this is 
our armour. 



< 141 > 



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August Fifth 




E need not fear militarism arising 
in America as long as the funda- 
mental principles of democracy are 
preserved and continually ex- 
tended, which can be done only through the 
feeling of the individual responsibility of 
every man and every woman to take a keen 
and constant interest in the matters of their 
own government — community, state, national, 
and now international. We must realize and 
ever more fully realize that in a government 
such as ours, the people are the government, 
and that when in it anything goes wrong, or 
wrongs and injustices are allowed to grow 
and hold sway, we are to blame. 

But the mind, the temper, the traditions of 
our people are all a guarantee against mili- 
tarism. The gospel, the hallucination of the 
shining armour, the will to power, has no at- 
traction for us. We loathe it; nor do we 
fear its undermining and crushing our own 
liberties internally. Nevertheless, it is true 
that vigilance is always and always will be the 
price of liberty. There must be a constant 
education towards citizenship. There must 
be an alert democracy, so that any land and 
sea force is always the servant of the spirit; 

<142> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

for only otherwise it can become its master- 
but otherwise it will become its master. 



August Sixth 

F one would have friends he or 
she must be a friend, must radi- 
ate habitually friendly, helpful 
thoughts. The one who doesn't 
cultivate the hopeful, cheerful, good-will at- 
titude toward life and toward others becomes 
a drag, making life harder for others as well 
as for one's self. 




August Seventh 




HE divine right of kings has gone. 
It holds no more. We hear now 
and then, it is true, some silly 
statement in regard to it, but little 
attention is paid to it. The divine right of 
priests has gone except in the minds of the 
few remaining ignorant and herdable ones. 
The divine right of dynasties — or rather of 
dynasties to persist — seems to die a little 
harder, but it is well on the way. We are 
now realizing that the only divine right is the 
right of the people — and all the people. 

Never again should it be possible for one 
-C143> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

man, or for one little group of men so to lead, 
or so to mislead a nation as to plunge it into 
war. The growth of democracy compelling 
the greater participation of all the people in 
government must prohibit this. So likewise 
the close relationship of the entire world now 
must make it for ever impossible for a single 
nation or a group of nations for any cause to 
plunge a whole world or any part of it into 
war. 

August Eighth 

UMANITY and civilization is not 
headed towards Ab the cave-man, 
whatever appearances, in the minds 
of many, may indicate at the pres- 
ent time. Humanity will arise and will re- 
construct itself. Great lessons will be 
learned. Good will result. But what a ter- 
rific price to pay! What a terrific price to 
pay to learn the lesson that "moral forces are 
the only invincible forces in the universe"! 

It has been slow, but steadily the world is 
advancing to that stage when the individual or 
the nation that does not know that the law of 
mutuality, of co-operation, and still more the 
law of sympathy and good will, is the supreme 
law in real civilization, real advancement, and 
real gain — that does not know that its own 






THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

welfare is always bound up with the welfare 
of the greater whole — is still in the brute 
stage of life and the bestial propensities are 
still its guiding forces. 

Prejudice, suspicion, hatred, national big- 
headedness, must give way to respect, sym- 
pathy, the desire for mutual understanding 
and co-operation. The higher attributes must 
and will assert themselves. The former are 
the ways of periodic if not continuous de- 
struction — the latter are the ways of the 
higher spiritual forces that must prevail. 



August Ninth 

T took men of great insight as well 
as vision to formulate our own 
Constitution which made thirteen 
distinct and sovereign states the 
United States of America. The formulation 
of the Constitution of the World League has 
required such men. As a nation we may be 
proud that two representative Americans have 
had so large a share in its accomplishment — 
President Wilson, good Democrat, and Ex- 
President Taft, good Republican. 

The greatest international and therefore 
world document ever produced has been 
forged — it awaits the coming days, years, and 
-C145> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

even generations for its completion. And we 
accord great honour also to those statesmen of 
other nations who have combined keen in- 
sight born of experience, with a lofty ideal- 
ism; for out of these in any realm of human 
activities and relations, whatever eventually 
becomes the practical, is born. 




August Tenth 

AITH is an invisible and invincible 
magnet, and attracts to itself 
whatever it fervently desires and 
calmly and persistently expects. 




August Eleventh 

HE Golden Rule is a wonderful de- 
veloper in human life, a wonderful 
harmonizer in community life — 
with great profit it could be ex- 
tended as the law of conduct in international 
relations. It must be so extended. Its very 
foundation is sympathy, good will, mutuality, 
love. 

The very essence of Jesus' entire revelation 
and teaching was love. It was not the teach- 
ing of weakness or supineness in the face of 



wrong, however. 



There was 



no failure on 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

his part to smite wrong when he saw it — 
wrong taking the form of injustice or oppres- 
sion. He had, as we have seen, infinite sym- 
pathy for and forbearance with the weak, the 
sinful; but he had always a righteous indigna- 
tion and a scathing denunciation for oppres- 
sion — for that spirit of hell that prompts men 
or organizations to seek, to study, to dominate 
the minds and thereby the lives of others. 

It was, moreover, that he would not keep 
silent regarding the deadly ecclesiasticism 
that bore so heavily upon his people and that 
had well-nigh crushed all their religious life 
whence are the very springs of life, that he 
aroused the deadly antagonism of the ruling 
hierarchy. And as he, witnessing for truth 
and freedom, steadfastly and defiantly op- 
posed oppression, so those who catch his spirit 
today will do as he did and will realize as 
duty — "While wrong is wrong let no man 
prate of peace!" 



August Twelfth 

ESUS gave the great principles, the 
animating spirit of life, not mi- 
nute details of conduct. The real 
Church of Christ is not an hier- 
archy, an institution, it is a brotherhood — the 
-C 147 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

actual establishing of the Kingdom of God in 
moral, ethical and social terms in the world. 




August Thirteenth 

T was Lincoln who gave us a won- 
derful summary when he said: 
"After all the one meaning of life 
is to be kind." 
Love, sympathy, fellowship is the very 
foundation of all civilized, happy, ideal life. 
It is the very balance-wheel of life itself. It 
gives that genuineness and simplicity in voice, 
in look, in spirit that is so instinctively felt 
by all, and to which all so universally re- 
spond. It is like the fragrance of the flower 
— the emanation of its soul. 

Interesting and containing a most vital truth 
is this little memoir by Christine Rossetti: 
"One whom I knew intimately, and whose 
memory I revere, once in my hearing re- 
marked that, 'unless we love people, we can- 
not understand them.' This was a new light 
to me." It contains indeed a profound truth. 



<U8> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

August Fourteenth 

OVE, sympathy, fellowship, is what 
makes human life truly human. 
Co-operation, mutual service, is its 
fruitage. A clear-cut realization 
of this and a resolute acting upon it would 
remove much of the cloudiness and the bar- 
renness from many a life; and its mutual 
recognition — and action based upon it — 
would bring order and sweetness and mutual 
gain in vast numbers of instances in family, 
in business, in community life. 

It would solve many of the knotty problems 
in all lines of human relations and human 
endeavour, whose solution heretofore has 
seemed well-nigh impossible. It is the tell- 
ing oil that will start to running smoothly and 
effectively many an otherwise clogged and 
grating system of human machinery. 

When men on both sides are long-headed 
enough, are sensible enough to see its prac- 
tical element and make it the fundamental 
basis of all relationships, of all negotiations, 
and all following activities in the relations 
between capital and labour, employer and em- 
ploye, literally a new era in the industrial 
world will spring into being. Both sides will 
be the gainer — the dividends flowing to each 
will be even surprising. 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

August Fifteenth 

jHERE is really no labour problem 
outside of sympathy, mutuality, 
good-will, co-operation, brother- 
hood. 

Injustice always has been and always will 
be the cause of all labour troubles. But we 
must not forget that it is sometimes on one 
side and sometimes on the other. Misunder- 
standing is not infrequently its accompani- 
ment. Imagination, sympathy, mutuality, 
co-operation, brotherhood are the hand-maid- 
ens of justice. 

No man is intelligent enough, is big enough 
to be the representative or the manager of 
capital, who is not intelligent enough to re- 
alize this. No man is fit to be the representa- 
tive of, or fit to have anything to do with the 
councils of labour who has not brains, intelli- 
gence enough to realize this. These qualities 
are not synonyms of or in any way related 
to sentimentality or any weak-kneed ethics. 
They underlie the soundest business sense. 
In this day and age they are synonyms of the 
word practical. 



'-C 150 y 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

August Sixteenth 




ITHIN the nation during this great 
reconstruction period, these are 
times that call for heroic men and 
women. In a Democracy or in any 
representative form of government an alert 
citizenship is its only safety. 

With a vastly increased voting population, 
in that many millions of women citizens are 
now admitted to full citizenship, the needs for 
intelligent action and attention to matters of 
government was never so great. Great num- 
bers will be herded and voted by organizations 
as well as by machines. As these will com- 
prise the most ignorant and therefore the herd- 
able ones, it is especially incumbent upon the 
great rank and file of intelligent women to 
see that they take and maintain an active in- 
terest in public affairs. 



August Seventeenth 

|UR chief problem is to see that 

Democracy is made safe for and 

made of real service to the world. 

Our American education must be 

made continually more keenly alive to the 

great moral, ethical and social needs of the 

time. Thereby it will be made religious with- 

-C 151 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

out having any sectarian slant or bias; it will 
be made safe for and the hand-maid of De- 
mocracy and not a menace to it. 

Vast multitudes today are seeing as never 
before that the moral and ethical foundations 
of the nation's and the world's life is a matter 
of primal concern to all. 

We are finding more and more that the 
simple fundamentals of life and conduct as 
portrayed by the Christ of Nazareth not only 
constitutes a great idealism, but the only 
practical way of life. Compared to this and 
to the need that it come more speedily and 
more universally into operation in the life of 
the world today, truly "sectarian peculiarities 
are obsolete impertinences." 



August Eighteenth 

E will do well as children of the 
same Father to sit down and talk 
matters over; and arise with the 
conclusion that the advice of Jesus, 
our elder brother, is sound: "Therefore all 
things whatsoever ye would that men should 
do to you, do ye even so to them." 

He gave it no label, but it has subsequently 
become known as the Golden Rule. There 
is no higher rule and no greater developer of 
-C152> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

the highest there is in the individual human 
life, and no greater adjuster and beautifier of 
the problems of our common human life. 
And when it becomes sufficiently strong in its 
action in this, the world awaits its projection 
into its international life. 

This is the truth that he revealed — the two- 
fold truth of love to God and love for the 
neighbour, that shall make men free. The 
truth of the Man of Nazareth still holds and 
shall hold, and we must realize this adequately 
before we ask or can expect any other revela- 
tion. 




August Nineteenth 

F God intended anything, he in- 
tended that we live simply and 
naturally, that we grow — some- 

I times through knocks — and, grow- 



ing, that we contribute our share to the neigh- 
bours' and the world's life and work, but that 
we be happy while we do it. 




August Twentieth 

HE value of prayer is not that God 

any 



will change or order 



any. 



laws or 
forces to suit the numerous and 
necessarily the diverse petitions of 
All things are through law, and law is 
< 153 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

fixed and inexorable. The value of prayer, 
of true prayer, is that through it one can so 
harmonize his life with the Divine order that 
intuitive perceptions of truth and a greater 
perception and knowledge of law becomes his 
possession. As has been said by an able con- 
temporary thinker and writer: "We cannot 
form a passably thorough notion of man with- 
out saturating it through and through with the 
idea of a cosmic inflow from outside his 
world life — the inflow of God. Without a 
large consciousness of the universe beyond 
our knowledge, few men, if any, have done 
great things. 1 



August Twenty -fir st 

T was more than a mere poetic 
idea that Lowell gave utterance to 
when he said: 



The thing we long for, that we are 
For one transcendent moment. 

To establish this connection, to actualize 
this God-consciousness, that it may not be for 
one transcendent moment, but that it may be- 
come constant and habitual, so that every 
thought arises, and so that every act goes forth 

1 Henry Holt in "Cosmic Relations." 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

from this centre, is the greatest good that can 
come into the possession of man. There is 
nothing greater. It is none other than the 
realization of Jesus' injunction — "Seek ye 
first the Kingdom of God and His righteous- 
ness, and all these things shall be added unto 
you." It is then that he said — Do not worry 
about your life. Your mind and your will 
are under the guidance of the Divine mind; 
your every act goes out under this direction 
and all things pertaining to your life will fall 
into their proper places. Therefore do not 
worry about your life. 



August Twenty -second 

SHALL always remember with 
great pleasure and profit a call a 
few days ago from Dr. Edward 
Emerson of Concord, Emerson's 
eldest son. Happily I asked him in regard to 
his father's methods of work — if he had any 
regular methods. He replied in substance: 
It was my father's custom to go daily to the 
woods — to listen. He would remain there an 
hour or more in order to get whatever there 
might be for him that day. He would then 
come home and write into a little book — his 
"day-book" — what he had gotten. Later on 
-C 155 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

when it came time to write a book, he would 
transcribe from this, in their proper sequence 
and with their proper connections, these en- 
trances of the preceding weeks or months. 
The completed book became virtually a ledger 
formed or posted from his day-books. 

The prophet is he who so orders his life that 
he can adequately listen to the voice, the rev- 
elations of the over soul, and who truthfully 
transcribes what he hears or senses. He is 
not a follower of custom or of tradition. He 
can never become and can never be made the 
subservient tool of an organization. His aim 
and his mission is rather to free men from 
ignorance, superstition, credulity, from half 
truths, by leading them into a continually 
larger understanding of truth, of law — and 
therefore of righteousness. 



August Twenty-third 

HE larger natures see the good in 
and sympathize with the weak- 
nesses and the frailties of others. 
They realize also that it is so con- 
summately inconsistent for one also with 
weaknesses, frailties, and faults, though per- 
haps of a little different character, to sit in 
judgment of another. 

-C156> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



August Twenty-fourth 




OT only is constant vigilance incum- 
bent upon us, but realizing the fact 
that the boys and the girls of today 
are the citizens of tomorrow — the 
nation's voters and law-makers — it is incum- 
bent upon us to see that American free educa- 
tion through American free public schools, is 
advanced to and maintained at its highest pos- 
sibilities, and kept free from any agencies that 
will make for a divided or anything less than 
a whole-hearted and intelligent citizenship. 

The motto on the Shakespeare statue at 
Leicester Square in London: "There is no 
darkness but ignorance," might well be repro- 
duced in every city and every hamlet in the 
nation. 



& 



August Twenty- fifth 

ATE revelations have shown how 
even education can be manipulated 
and prostituted for ulterior pur- 
poses. Parochial schools whether 
Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, or Oriental, have 
no place in American institutions — and 
whether their work is carried on in English 
or in a foreign language. They are abso- 
lutely foreign to the spirit of our institutions. 
-C157> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

They are purely for the sake of something less 
than the nation itself. Blind indeed are we 
if we are not history-wise. Criminal indeed 
are we to allow any boys or girls to be diverted 
to them and to be deprived of the advantages 
of a better schooling, and being brought un- 
der the influences of agencies that are thor- 
oughly and wholly American. 

August Twenty -sixth 

MERICAN education must be made 
for American institutions and for 
nothing less than this. The na- 
tion's children should be shielded 
from any power that seeks to get possession 
of them in order at an early and unaccount- 
able age to fasten authority upon them, and 
to drive a wedge between them and all others 
of the nation. 

The nation has a duty to every child within 
its borders. To fail to recognize or to shirk 
that duty, will call for a price to be paid 
sometime as great as that that has been paid 
by every other nation that did not see until 
too late. Sectarianism in education stultifies 
and robs the child and nullifies the finest na- 
tional instincts in education. It is for but 
one purpose — the use and the power of the 
organization that plans and that fosters it. 
-C158> 





THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

August Twenty-seventh 

UR government profiting by the long 
weary struggles of other countries, 
is founded upon the absolute separ- 
ation of church and state. This 
does not mean the separation of religion in 
its true sense from the state; but keeping it 
free from every type of sectarian influence 
and domination. It is ours to see that no 
silent subtle influences are at work, that will 
eventually make the same trouble here as in 
other countries, or that will thrust out the same 
stifling hand to undermine and to throttle uni- 
versal free public education, and the inalien- 
able right that every child has to it. Our chil- 
dren are the wards of and accountable to the 
nation — they are not the property of any or- 
ganization, group or groups, less than the state. 
We need the creation of a strong Federal 
Department of Education of cabinet rank, 
with ample means and strong powers to be 
the guiding genius of all our state and local 
departments of education, with greater atten- 
tion paid to a more thorough and concrete 
training in civics, in moral and ethical educa- 
tion, in addition to the other well recognized 
branches in public school education. It 
should have such powers also as will enable 
it to see that every child is in school up to a 

-Ci59> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

certain age, or until all the fundamentals of a 
prescribed standard of American education 
are acquired. 



August Twenty-eighth 

UR love, our service, our helpful- 
ness to others, invariably comes 
back to us, intensified sometimes a 
hundred or a thousand or a thou- 
sand thousand fold, and this by a great im- 
mutable law. 





August Twenty-ninth 

HE greatest gains in the relations 
between capital and labour during 
the coming few years will un- 
doubtedly be along the lines of 
profit-sharing. Some splendid beginnings 
are already in successful operation. There 
is the recognition that capital is entitled ini- 
tially to a fair return; again that labour is 
entitled to a good and full living wage — when 
both these conditions are met then that there 
be an equal division of the profits that re- 
main, between the capital and the skill and 
management back of the capital invested on 
-C160> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

the one hand, and labour on the other. With- 
out the former labour would have no employ- 
ment in the particular enterprise; without the 
workers the former could not carry on. Each 
is essential to the other. 



August Thirtieth 

ABOUR being not a commodity, as 
some material thing merely to be 
bought and sold, but the human ele- 
ment, is entitled to more than a liv- 
ing wage. It has human aspirations, and 
desires and needs. It has not only its present 
but its own and its children's future to safe- 
guard. When it is thus made a partner in 
the business it becomes more earnest and re- 
liable and effective in its work, less inclined 
to condone the shiftless, the incompetent, 
the slacker; more eager and resolute in with- 
standing the ill-founded, reckless or sinister 
suggestions or efforts of an ill-advised leader- 
ship. 

Capital or employer is the gainer also, be- 
cause it is insured that loyal and more in- 
telligent co-operation in its enterprise that is 
as essential to its success as is the genius and 
skill of management. 

-C161> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 
August Thirty -fir st 

HE world," said Emerson, "belongs 
to the energetic and the wise." 
The universe, indeed, seems to be 
so constructed that it responds to 
earnest desire, energetic action, and deter- 
mined purpose. 





September First 

IFFERENGES that have sometimes 
separated our various religious 
bodies on account of differences 
of opinion, whether in thought or 
interpretation, 1 are now found to be so in- 
significant when compared to the actual simple 
fundamentals that the Master taught, and when 
compared to the work to be done, that a great 
Interallied Church Movement is now taking 
concrete and strong working form, that is 
equipping the church for a mighty and far- 

1 The thought of the layman in practically all of 
our churches is much the same as that of Mr. Lloyd 
George when he said: "The Church to which I be- 
long is torn with a fierce dispute; one part says 
it is baptism into the name of the Father, and the 
other that it is baptism in the name of the Father. 
I belong to one of these parties. I feel most 
strongly about this. I would die for it, but I 
forget which it is." 

-C 162 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

reaching Christian work. A new and great 
future lies immediately ahead. The good 
it is equipping itself to accomplish is beyond 
calculation — a work in which minister and 
layman will have equal voice and equal share. 
It will receive also great inspiration and 
it will eagerly strike hands with all allied 
movements that are following the same leader, 
but along different roads. 



September Second 

N our mental lives we can either 
keep hold of the rudder and so de- 
termine exactly what course we 
take, what points we touch, or we 
can fail to do this, and failing, we drift, and 
are blown hither and thither by every passing 
breeze. 




September Third 

OR the all-round life there must be 

the balance also as to the kinds of 

work. The hand, manual, ground 

worker, to insure the most happy 

and satisfying life for himself, to say nothing 

of his greater value to his community, to 

the state, must turn periodically into the in- 

< 163 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

tellectual bye-ways, through investigation, 
study, reading, a greater intelligence of the 
best and latest developments and findings in 
his own work, as well as keeping in touch 
with general progress. This will determine 
whether he remain or become a mere machine 
or an intelligent, commanding worker, as also 
a valuable citizen. 

The brain worker, the business man, and 
especially the one doing creative mental work, 
if he would know the all-round joy of living, 
must have that to turn to whereby his hands, 
his body, get their normal, healthy activity, 
and if it be useful, constructive work, or work 
in or of the soil, the greater the interest and 
value. 

This would save almost countless thousands 
of good men and good women that over- 
wrought, nervous, brain and nerve fagged con- 
dition that renders full enjoyment of any- 
thing impossible, that causes a craving for and 
a turning to stimulants, excitement, extrava- 
gances that only increase their difficulties. 
It would save them to the simple, healthy, 
homely, and lasting joys that nature rewards 
never with satiety, but with good sleep, good 
appetite, good digestion, in brief, that greatest 
of all earthly blessings — good health. 



<164> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

September Fourth 

HATEVER channel the mind sets 
itself in the life will follow; for it 
is invariably true that the life al- 
ways follows the thought. 





September Fifth 

HEN we turn to Jesus' own teach- 
ings we find that his insistence was 
not primarily upon the saving of 
the soul, but upon the saving of the 
life for usefulness, for service, here and now, 
for still higher growth and unfoldment, 
whereby the soul might be grown to a suffi- 
cient degree that it would be worth the sav- 
ing. And this is one of the great facts that 
is now being recognized and preached by the 
forward-looking men and women in our 
churches, and by many equally religious out- 
side of our churches. 




September Sixth 

LL things are for a purpose, all 
should be used and enjoyed; but 
all should be rightly used that they 
may be fully enjoyed. 
<\6S> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




September Seventh 

RAVEL is of great value as well 
as of great interest, not only dur- 
ing its progress. It is a wonder- 
ful asset to have in one's life by 
way of the memories that it gives and enables 
the mind to live through many times, through 
all the years that follow. It makes one in- 
deed a citizen of the world, instead of a 
provincial. 

It widens one's horizon and gives him a 
truer perspective for all things in life, as well 
as a more intelligent interest and contact with 
all the world. The diversified human touch 
and the contact that it gives, leads up to the 
heights where we have continually the wider 
horizon. 



September Eighth 

HOU wilt keep him in perfect peace 
whose mind is stayed on thee," has 
been and perhaps will be for ages 
to come, the sustaining force of 
thousands of lives. Perhaps no greater truth 
in a single sentence has ever been uttered in 
the world's history than this. 




-066 3- 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

September Ninth 

HEN any theory or system becomes 
institutionalized, then, there is al- 
ways a very great tendency in hu- 
man nature to bring in additional 
things, to invent, to romance, to make more 
complex, and to mystify, in order that there 
seem to be enough to hold the people, in or- 
der, in turn, that the institution may grow or 
even hold its own. 

This has occurred time and again in the 
world's history. It is the great danger of in- 
stitutions and organizations. Invariably the 
time comes when the spirit departs from them 
and the empty shell remains. Then people 
begin to feed on husks, missing thereby the 
life-giving grain. They think the vehicle is 
the thing — the end — when it is simply a means 
to an end. It is this condition that Jesus 
spoke so profoundly against. He would un- 
questionably speak as profoundly against the 
same condition were he among us today. 



September Tenth 

HE other day a couple of little girls 
came to a physician's office to be 
vaccinated. One of them under- 
took to speak for the other, and ex- 
<161> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

plained: "Doctor, this is my sister. She is 
too young to know her left arm from her right, 
so mamma washed them both." 

There was an element of the haphazard in 
at least one department of the life of this 
family. There is an element of the haphaz- 
ard, I fear, in those of most of us. 

There are some lives that seem so even, 
so definite, so straight-to-the-mark like, while 
there are others — so many others — that seem 
so haphazard, so unsystematized, so get-no- 
where like. Is it all merely a matter of 
chance? 

If we look deeply enough, we will find that 
in connection with human life, as well as 
in connection with the universe about us, 
there is no such thing as chance. There is 
only law, and the great elemental law of 
cause and effect is in operation, and with ab- 
solute precision, in the universe about us and 
in each individual life. An able writer has 
said: "God, the maker of all things, does 
not change His laws. 'As you sow you reap.' 
He simply makes His laws, and we work our 
destinies for good or ill according to our ad- 
herence to them or violation of them," 

In connection with human life the general 
law is — As is the inner so always and neces- 
sarily is the outer. 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

September Eleventh 

HERE are certain faculties that we 
have that are not a part of the ac- 
tive thinking mind; they seem to 
be no part of what we might term 
our conscious intelligence. They transcend 
any possible activities of our regular mental 
processes, and they are in some ways inde- 
pendent of them. Through some avenue, sug- 
gestions, intuitions of truth, intuitions of oc- 
currences of which through the thinking mind 
we could know nothing, are at times borne in 
upon us; they flash into our consciousness, as 
we say, quite independent of any mental ac- 
tion on our part, and sometimes when we are 
thinking of something quite foreign to that 
which comes to, that which "impresses," us. 
This seems to indicate a source of knowl- 
edge, a faculty that is distinct from, but that 
acts in various ways in conjunction with, the 
active thinking mind. It performs likewise 
certain very definite and distinct functions in 
connection with the body. It is this that is 
called the subconscious mind — by some the 
superconscious or the supernormal mind, by 
others the subliminal self. 



-C169 3- 



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September Twelfth 

VERY moment of our lives, at least 
during our waking hours, we are 
unconsciously forming habits. Is 
it well unconsciously to form them 
and thereby drift, or run the risk of drifting, 
or consciously to form them, and get thereby 
definite, orderly, and desirable results? 

The habit will follow the thought. No 
habit — good or bad — ever has or ever can be 
established in any other way. If then an un- 
desirable habit has been formed through a 
certain type or course of thinking, it can be 
pushed out of the life and its opposite be made 
to take its place, by entertaining and holding 
to a different type and course of thought. 
Whatever types of thoughts therefore one 
chooses, his or her life will inevitably fol- 
low. 



September Thirteenth 

OURAGE and faith beget energy 
and power; energy and power 
rightly directed bring success. 
Such, as a rule, are the successful 

people — successful simply by way of natural 

law. 




< 170 y 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

September Fourteenth 

man can live to himself alone. 
The Order of the Universe has been 
written from time immemorial 
against it. There is no man who 
has ever found happiness by striving for it di- 
rectly. It never has and it never can come 
that way. Why? Simply because the very 
laws of the universe are against it. 

It was Charles Kingsley who sang so truly: 

"Friends, in this world of hurry 

And work and sudden end, 
If a thought comes quick of doing 

A kindness to a friend, 
Do it that very instant! 

Don't put it off — don't wait! 
What's the use of doing a kindness 

If you do it a day too late!" 



September Fifteenth 

HE mind carries with it the power 
that perpetuates its own type of 
thought, the same as the body car- 
ries with it through the reflex nerve 
system the power which perpetuates and 
makes continually easier its own particular 
acts. Thus a simple effort to control one's 
thoughts, a simple setting about it, even if at 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

first failure is the result, and even if for a 
time failure seems to be about the only result, 
will in time, sooner or later, bring him to the 
point of easy, full, and complete control. 

Each one, then, can grow the power of de- 
termining, controlling his thought, the power 
of determining what types of thought he shall 
and what types he shall not entertain. For 
let us never part in mind with this fact, that 
every earnest effort along any line makes the 
end aimed at just a little easier for each suc- 
ceeding effort, even if, as has been said, ap- 
parent failure is the result of the earlier ef- 
forts. This is a case where even failure is 
success, for the failure is not in the effort, 
and every earnest effort adds an increment of 
power that will eventually accomplish the end 
aimed at. 



September Sixteenth 




E speak of a man's failing in busi- 
ness, little thinking that the real 
failure came long before, and that 
the final crash is but the culmina- 
tion, the outward visible manifestation, of the 
real failure that occurred within possibly long 
ago. A man carries his success or his failure 
with him: it is not dependent upon outside 
conditions. 

<112> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 



=ai 



September Seventeenth 

HE mental attitude we take toward 
anything determines to a greater or 
less extent its effects upon us. If 
we fear it, or if we antagonize it, 
the chances are that it will have detrimental 
or even disastrous effects upon us. If we 
come into harmony with it by quietly recog- 
nizing and inwardly asserting our superiority 
over it, in the degree that we are able success- 
fully to do this, in that degree will it carry 
with it no injury for us. 




September Eighteenth 

F we would seek the essence of 
Jesus' revelation, attested both by 
his words and his life, it was to 
bring a knowledge of the ineffable 
love of God to man, and by revealing this, to 
instil in the minds and hearts of men love for 
God, and a knowledge of and following of 
the ways of God. It was also then to bring a 
new emphasis of the Divine law of love — 
the love of man for man. Combined, it re- 
sults, so to speak, in raising men to a higher 
power, to a higher life, — as individuals, as 
groups, as one great world group. 

It is a newly sensitized attitude of mind 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

and heart that he brought and that he en- 
deavoured to reveal in all its matchless beauty 
— a following not of the traditions of men, but 
fidelity to one's God, whereby the Divine rule 
in the mind and heart assumes supremacy and, 
as must inevitably follow, fidelity on one's 
fellow-men. These are the essentials of 
Jesus' revelation — the fundamental forces in 
his own life. 



September Nineteenth 

ND so we have this young Galilean 
prophet, coming from an hitherto 
unknown Jewish family in the ob- 
scure little village of Nazareth, 
giving obedience in common with his four 
brothers and sisters to his father and his 
mother; but by virtue of a supreme aptitude 
for and an irresistible call to the things of 
the spirit — made irresistible through his over- 
whelming love for the things of the spirit — 
that he is early absorbed by the realization of 
the truth that God is his father and that all 
men are brothers. 

The thought that God is his father and that 
he bears a unique and filial relationship to 
God so possesses him that he is filled, per- 
meated with the burning desire to make this 
-C174> 




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newborn message of truth and thereby of 
righteousness known to the world. 

His own native religion, once vibrating 
through the souls of the prophets as the voice 
of God, has become so obscured, so hedged 
about, so killed by dogma, by ceremony, by 
outward observances, that it has become a 
mean and pitiable thing, and produces mean 
and pitiable conditions in the lives of his peo- 
ple. The institution has become so overgrown 
that the spirit has gone. But God finds an- 
other prophet, clearly and supremely open to 
His spirit, and Jesus comes as the Messiah, 
the Divine Son of God, the Divine Son of 
Man, bringing to the earth a new Dispensation. 
It is the message of the Divine Fatherhood of 
God, God whose controlling character is love, 
and with it the Divine sonship of man. An 
integral part of it is — all men are brothers. 



September Twentieth 




E comes as the teacher of a new, a 

higher righteousness. He brings 

the message and he expounds the 

message of the Kingdom of God. 

All men he teaches must repent and turn from 

their sins, and must henceforth live in this 

Kingdom. It is an inner kingdom. Men 

-C 175 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

shall not say: Behold, it is here or it is there; 
for, behold, it is within you. God is your 
father and God longs for your acknowledg- 
ment of Him as your father; He longs for your 
love even as He loves you. 

You are children of God, but you are not 
true Sons of God until through desire the 
Divine rule and life becomes supreme in your 
minds and hearts. It is thus that you will 
find the Kingdom of God. When you do, 
then your every act will show forth in accord- 
ance with this Divine ideal and guide, and 
the supreme law of conduct in your lives will 
be love for your neighbour, for all mankind. 
Through this there will then in time become 
actualized the Kingdom of Heaven on the 
earth. 

September Twenty-first 

N this majestic life divinity and hu- 
manity meet. Here is the in- 
carnation. The first of the race 
consciously, vividly, and fully to 
realize that God incarnates Himself and has 
His abode in the hearts and the lives of men, 
the first therefore to realize his Divine Son- 
ship and become able thereby to reveal and to 
teach the Divine Fatherhood of God and the 
Divine Sonship of Man. 

In this majestic life is the atonement, the 
<YJ6> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

realization of the at-one-ment of the Divine in 
the human, made manifest in his own life and 
by the way that he taught, sealed then by his 
own blood. 

In this majestic life we have the mediator, 
the medium or connector of the Divine and the 
human. In it we have the Saviour, the very 
incarnation of the truth that he taught and 
that lifts the minds and thereby the lives of 
men up to their Divine ideal and pattern, that 
redeems their lives from the sordidness and 
selfishness and sin of the hitherto purely ma- 
terial self, and that being thereby saved, 
makes them fit subjects for the Father's King- 
dom. 

In this majestic life is the full embodiment 
of the beauty of holiness — whose words have 
gone forth and whose spirit is ceaselessly at 
work in the world, drawing men and women 
up to their divine ideal and that will continue 
so to draw all in proportion as his words of 
truth and his life are lifted up throughout the 
world. 



September Twenty -second 

ND whatever changes the years may 
bring, there should be gains, in ex- 
perience, in knowledge, in wisdom, 
and in powers, that will far more 





THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

than compensate for whatever losses or ap- 
parent losses the passing years have brought. 



September Twenty-third 

T is not with observation, said Jesus, 
that the supreme thing he taught — 
the seeking and finding of the 
Kingdom of God — will come. Do 
not seek it at some other place, some other 
time. It is within, and if within it will show 
forth. It touches and it sensitizes the inner 
springs of action in a man's or a woman's life. 
When a man realizes his Divine sonship 
that Jesus taught, he will act as a son of God. 
Out of the heart spring either good or evil 
actions. Self-love, me, mine; let me get all 
I can for myself, or, thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bour as thyself — the Divine law of service, of 
mutuality — the highest source of ethics. 

You can trust any man whose heart is 
right. He will be straight, clean, reliable. 
His word will be as good as his bond. Per- 
sonally you can't trust a man who is brought 
into any line of action, or into any institution 
through fear. The sore is there, liable to 
break out in corruption at any time. This 
opening up of the springs of the inner life 
frees him also from the letter of the law, 
< 178 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

which after all consists of the traditions of 
men, and makes him subject to that higher 
moral guide within. 




September Twenty -fourth 

N the degree that you keep young in 
thought will you remain young in 
body. And you will find that your 
body will in turn aid your mind, 

for body helps mind the same as mind builds 

body. 

September Twenty-fifth 

MAN may be a believer in Jesus 
for a full life-time and still be an 
outcast from the Kingdom of God 
and His righteousness. But a man 
can't believe Jesus, which means following his 
teachings, without coming at once into the 
Kingdom and enjoying its matchless blessings 
both here and hereafter. And if there is one 
clear-cut teaching of the Master, it is that the 
life here determines and with absolute pre- 
cision the life to come. 

One need not then concern himself with 

this or that doctrine, whether it be true or 

false. Later speculations and theories are 

not for him. Jesus' own saying replies here: 

< 179 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

"If any man will do his will he shall know of 
the doctrine, whether it be of God." He en- 
ters into the Kingdom, the Kingdom of 
Heaven here and now; and when the time 
comes for him to pass out of this life, he goes 
as a joyous pilgrim, full of anticipation for 
the Kingdom that awaits him, and the Master's 
words go with him: "In my Father's house 
are many mansions." 



September Twenty-sixth 

HE old dispensation, with its legal 
formalism, was an eye for an eye 
and a tooth for a tooth. The new 
dispensation was — "But I say unto 
you, Love your enemies." Enmity begets en- 
mity. It is as senseless as it is godless. It 
runs through all his teachings and through 
every act of his life. If fundamentally you 
do not have the love of your fellow-man in 
your hearts, you do not have the love of God 
in your hearts and you cannot have. 

And that this fundamental revelation be not 
misunderstood, near the close of his life he 
said : "A new commandment I give unto you, 
that ye love one another." No man could be, 
can be his disciple, his follower, and fail in 
the realization of this fundamental teaching. 
-C 180 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

"By this shall all men know that ye are my 
disciples, if ye love one another." And go- 
ing back again to his ministry we find that it 
breathes through every teaching that he gave. 
It breathes through that short memorable 
prayer which we call the Lord's Prayer. It 
permeates the Sermon on the Mount. It is 
the very essence of his summing up of this 
discourse. 

We call it the Golden Rule. "Whatsoever 
ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
even so to them." Not that it was original 
with Jesus; other teachers sent of God had 
given it before to other peoples — God's other 
children; but he gave it a new emphasis, a new 
setting. He made it fundamental. 



September Twenty-seventh 

a man who is gripped at all vitally 




by Jesus' teaching of the personal 
fatherhood of God, and the per- 
sonal brotherhood of man, simply 
can't help but make this the basic rule of his 
life — and moreover find joy in so making it. 
A man who really comprehends this funda- 
mental teaching can't be crafty, sneaking, dis- 
honest, or dishonourable, in his business, or 
in any phase of his personal life. He never 
-C181> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

hogs the penny — in other words, he never 
seeks to gain his own advantage to the disad- 
vantage of another. He may be long-headed; 
he may be able to size up and seize conditions; 
but he seeks no advantage for himself to the 
detriment of his fellow, to the detriment of 
his community, or to the detriment of his ex- 
tended community, the nation or the world. 
He is thoughtful, considerate, open, frank; 
and, moreover, he finds great joy in being so. 



September Twenty-eighth 

T is our eternal refusal to follow 
Jesus by listening to the words of 
life that he brought, and our prone- 
ness to substitute something else 
in their place, that brings the barrenness that 
is so often evident in the everyday life of the 
Christian. We have been taught to believe in 
Jesus; we have not been taught to believe 
Jesus. This has resulted in a separation of 
Christianity from life. The predominating 
motive has been the saving of the soul. It has 
resulted too often in a selfish, negative, repres- 
sive, ineffective religion. As Jesus said: 
"And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not 
the things which I say?" 

We are just beginning to realize at all 
-C182> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

adequately that it was the salvation of the life 
that he taught. When the life is redeemed to 
righteousness through the power of the in- 
dwelling God and moves out in love and in 
service for one's fellow-men, the soul is then 
saved. 



September Twenty -ninth 

HE present state and condition of 
the body have been produced 
primarily by the thoughts that have 
been taken by the conscious mind 
into the subconscious, that is so intimately re- 
lated to and that directs all the subconscious 
and involuntary functions of the body. 




September Thirtieth 

IE can't have an expansive stretch 
of healthy life without an expan- 
sive sweep of the mind. Littleness 
of mind, jealousy, envy, the tend- 
ency to gossip, looking for the faults rather 
than the good traits in others, all have their 
adverse, stultifying, dwarfing influences. 




<IZZ> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




October First 

supremely had this young Jewish 
prophet, the son of a carpenter, 
made God's business his business, 
that he had come into the full reali- 
zation of the oneness of his life with the 
Father's life. He was able to realize and to 
say, "I and my Father are one." He was 
able to bring to the world a knowledge of the 
great fact of facts — the essential oneness of 
the human with the Divine — that God taber- 
nacles with men, that He makes His abode 
in the minds and the hearts of those who 
through desire and through will open their 
hearts to His indwelling presence. 

The first of the race, he becomes the re- 
vealer of this great eternal truth — the media- 
tor, therefore, between God and man — in very 
truth the Saviour of men. 




October Second 

E need more faith in everyday life, 
— faith in the power that works 
for good, faith in the Infinite God, 
and hence faith in ourselves created 



image. 



-C 184 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

October Third 

are all influenced, and whether 
conscious of it or not, by the pre- 
vailing mental and emotional states 
and conditions of those with whom 
we come in contact. 

It was Beecher who said : "There are per- 
sons so radiant, so genial, so kind, so pleasure- 
bearing, that you instinctively feel in their 
presence that they do you good; whose com- 
ing into a room is like the bringing of a lamp 
there." 




GO&2 



October Fourth 

OT only are our accomplishments 
determined by our prevailing 
types of thought, but our influence 
upon others is determined in this 
same way. Those who come in personal con- 
tact with us are influenced invariably, though 
many times unconsciously, by our prevailing 
types of thought. 

If we are hopeful, we inspire hope — we 
radiate hope and encouragement and strength, 
so to speak. If we have a feeling of friend- 
ship and good-will and helpfulness — love — 
we inspire these same qualities in others, and 
the same types of warming and life-giving 
thought-forces come back in turn to us from 
< 185 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

them. It is, therefore, scientifically true that 
as a man gives he gets. 




October Fifth 

HE great and strong character is the 
one who is ever ready to sacrifice 
the present pleasure for the future 
good. 




October Sixth 

F we are small and critical we in- 
spire and call from others the small 
and critical type of thought and 
act. If we hate we inspire hatred, 
and, with its chilling, killing qualities, it will 
turn back to us again. 

If we live in envy of those who are doing 
things, we are dwarfing powers within us that, 
if rightly cultivated and grown, would enable 
us likewise to do things, and thus remove any 
cause for envy. If we love we inspire love, 
and the warming, ennobling, uplifting influ- 
ences of love will come back to us. 

We can hinder and retard another by hold- 
ing him or her in the thought of weakness or 
failure, the same as we can hinder or retard 
our own efforts. 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




October Seventh 

keep calm and quiet within — and 
the mouth closed — and to look for- 
ward with hope and faith and 
courage, and with the dogged de- 
termination of still finding the best when the 
illusions break or show cracks, is the mark 
of the man or the woman who will finally win 
out. 

It's the man or the woman who does not al- 
low himself or herself to get, as the expression 
is, "all balled up," who generally arrives, and 
who also wears. Those who do allow it are 
generally the greatest hindrances there are in 
the world to themselves, and they are likewise 
a hindrance to others. Certainly, others are 
influenced, and generally badly influenced, by 
the uncertain, excitable and non-productive 
type of thought that emanates as an atmos- 
phere from us. 



October Eighth 

UMANITY is brave, so brave we 
will find if we search carefully — 
and even at times perchance if we 
look within — as to fill us with ad- 
miration for this rather common and, at times, 
-087 3- 




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queer and questionable thing we call Human 
Nature. 

Hope and courage and sympathy and trust 
are great producers, and they are great factors 
in a man's doing his duty, as well as his 
having the joy of achievement. "Never to 
tire," said Amiel, "never to grow cold; to be 
patient, sympathetic, tender; to look for the 
budding flower and the opening heart; to hope 
always like God; to love always — this is 
Duty." 

October Ninth 

HE life of every one is in his own 
hands and he can make it in char- 
acter, in attainment, in power, in 
divine self-realization, and hence 
in influence, exactly what he wills to make it. 




October Tenth 

0, an optimistic philosophy rightly 

understood, does not teach that life 

is merely a long, even holiday, that 

there are no minor strains in what 

might be termed its daily music, no problems 

to be solved, no bread to be earned, no tired 

bodies that welcome the rest of the night, no 

<188> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

burdens to be shared with friend, neighbour, 
relative. 

It does teach that we should always look for 
the best there is, and always expect to find it, 
and that we should never allow ourselves to in- 
dulge in fears and forebodings, and to stand 
trembling and helpless when the problem 
arises, when the distressing circumstance pre- 
sents itself, when the work is to be done, and 
perchance the sorrow or bereavement to be 
borne. 

It teaches also to turn never a deaf, but 
always a ready ear to the friend's or neigh- 
bour's signal of distress. It equips us with 
the weapons to face such conditions when they 
arise, and to so direct them that they work for 
our advantage and our good, instead of against 
us. 



October Eleventh 

HE greatest greatness and the only 
true greatness in the world is un- 
selfish love and service and self- 
devotion to one's fellow-men. 




-089 3- 



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October Twelfth 

T is well that we work each for his 
own individual good. Any one, 
however, who stops there will find 
that he can never reach his highest 
individual good unless he takes also an in- 
terest — and not merely a sentimental, but an 
active interest — in the lives and in the welfare 
of those about him. "Help thou thy brother's 
boat across, and, lo! thine own has reached 
the shore," says the Hindoo proverb. 

There must be the general as well as the 
individual good, and only he who is aiding it 
is realizing the best for himself. "I have no- 
ticed," said Uncle Eben, "dat de man who gits 
so selfish dat he can't think o' nobody 'cept 
hisse'f, ginerally looks like he war thinkin' 
of sumpin' disagreeable." 




October Thirteenth 

F we adopt a philosophy that recog- 
nizes the working always of the 
law of cause and effect, instead of 
mere blind chance happening, then 
we believe that everything that comes into our 
lives has its part to play, and it is our portion 
to meet whatever comes in such a way that it 
will serve its highest purposes in our lives. 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

Personally, I believe that nothing ever comes 
by chance, that everything comes through the 
operation of law, although many times we are 
not able to see the cause that has produced or 
that is producing such results. 

Moreover, I believe that whatever comes has 
its part to play, its mission to fulfil, and that 
if we cannot always see it we may not do un- 
wisely in having faith that the time will come 
when we will eventually rejoice that each 
thing came as it came. 

If we can preserve this attitude, then when 
the difficult thing is before us, its sting will 
be drawn, and our faith, insight, and courage 
to meet it wisely, and to get the best there is 
from it, will be increased many times a hun- 
dredfold. 



October Fourteenth 




NE of the great laws of life is giv- 
ing — we term it service. Service 
for others is just as essential to our 
real happiness and to our highest 
welfare as is the fact that we work for our 
own individual welfare. No man lives to 
himself alone. No man can live to himself 
alone. The Order of the Universe has been 
written from time immemorial against it. 
There is no man who has ever found hap- 
< 191 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

piness by striving for it directly. It never 
has and it never can come that way. Why? 
Simply because the very laws of the universe 
are against it. 



October Fifteenth 

ND so pleasure comes not by seek- 
ing for it directly and regularly, 
but is the outcome, the natural out- 
come, of a well-regulated, an alert, 
progressive, unself -centred and useful life. 





October Sixteenth 

OY in another's success not only 
indicates always the large type, 
but it indicates that they in turn 
are worthy of success themselves. 
And if they are not always what we term a 
success in some given field, or art, or in ac- 
quiring wealth, they are a success in the great- 
est of arts, the Art of Living. They are also 
a success in that the joy and happiness of 
others enters into and becomes a portion of 
their own lives. Half the heartaches of the 
world would be banished, and half its burdens 
would be lifted, if every life were habitually 
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tuned to this deep but simply expressed senti- 
ment by Emily Dickinson: 

"They might not need me — yet they might, 
I'll let my heart be just in sight. 
A smile so small as mine might be 
Precisely their necessity." 




October Seventeenth 

OPE and tranquillity open the chan- 
nels of the body, so that the life 
forces go bounding through it in 
such a way that disease can rarely 



get a foothold. 




October Eighteenth 

E should be lenient in judging an- 
other, and we should be lenient 
in judging ourselves. From my 
own stumblings and errors and fall- 
ings I have come to the place where my only 
question in regard to another is, Which way is 
he looking? Not, how much has he groped 
and stumbled and fallen, the same as myself; 
but is his face now turned in the right direc- 
tion, and is he genuinely endeavouring to 
keep it there? 

If he is wise enough, when he falls, to 
-C 193 > 



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linger there only long enough to get his les- 
son, and long-headed enough to learn it 
quickly and go on, even his stumbling be- 
comes an asset, and it is a mere matter of time 
before he reaches a very certain destination. 
The bright child doesn't have to be burned 
continually. The wise man or woman learns 
his or her lessons quickly and goes on. 
"Don't worry when you stumble — remember, 
a worm is about the only thing that can't fall 
down," some one has said most admirably. 



October Nineteenth 

IFE is so much more interesting than 
boards and bricks, than lands and 
business blocks, and even bank ac- 
counts, and the men who are thor- 
oughly interested in life are always of more 
account, and are always of greater value to 
the world, as well as to themselves, than the 
men who are interested only in these. 

That is why a very eminent corporation 
lawyer, in a notable address some time ago, 
said: "It is because I believe so strongly in 
the saving power of the intellectual life upon 
the institutions of society, and upon the wel- 
fare, of individuals, that I plead so earnestly 
for it. The fortunes of science, art, litera- 



'&. 



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ture, and government are indissolubly linked 
with it. The centres and shrines of the most 
potent influences are not the seats of commerce 
and capital. The village of Concord, where 
Emerson, Hawthorne, Alcott, and Thoreau 
lived, was, in their day, and will long con- 
tinue to be, a greater force in this nation than 
New York and Chicago added to each other. 
We may rest in the assured faith that, who- 
ever may seem to rule, the thinker is, and al- 
ways will be, the master." We can readily 
see what he meant, and can we say that he was 
not right? 



October Twentieth 

T is true that the common man is the 
man who allows himself to be ab- 
sorbed completely by the common, 
and by common I mean the purely 
material, things of life — boards, bricks, crops, 
lands, markets, business, food, clothing. All 
of these we readily admit are important. 
But unless a man can rise above these in 
thought, in mind, in spirit, in appreciation and 
enjoyment, now and then, he is, and he is re- 
garded by his neighbours, as a common man. 
That is why a man who may be worth many 
millions, but who has neither appreciation nor 
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■ _ _ i 



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ability for the enjoyment of things beyond his 
millions, is a very common man. 




October Twenty-first 

ANKIND is advancing. It is at- 
taining to an ever higher standing 
ground, and it is placing those who 
are incapable of the things of the 
mind and spirit, the imagination and the heart, 
on a very ordinary plane. 

No, the best is the life — the things of the 
mind and spirit. They will buy out all the 
world at last. Why? Because they are the 
things that are real, the things that will last, 
the only things that eventually really count. 
It's the thinker and the man of broad unself- 
centred, sympathetic impulses that always will 
lead, and that always will be recognized as the 
leader. 

October Twenty -second 

THINK a great reason why the 
quality of happiness and content- 
ment is escaping so many lives is 
that we have lost, to a great extent, 
the sense of proportion. We are concerned 
and absorbed with so many things that are 
merely means to an end, instead of with the 
-C 196 > 




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end itself. Not that these are not of impor- 
tance; but they are, after all, merely means, 
and they can never have any importance other 
than merely relative. We are concerned more 
with the "fixings" of life, and the means of 
ever increasing them, than we are with the 
life itself. And, after all, we can never get 
away from the fact, except at the expense al- 
ways of a great personal loss, and many times 
even at our peril, that the life is the thing. 



October Twenty-third 

HE redemption of man takes place 
when the spirit of God takes pos- 
session of his mind and heart, and 
permeates his daily life to the 
minutest detail. "For as many as are led by 
the Spirit of God, they are the Sons of God." 
Such was the life and such was the teaching 
of Jesus. 




October Twenty-fourth 

MAN may become wealthy, he may 
become very wealthy in the sense 
of acquiring money. He may be- 
come a millionaire, and even many 
times over, by working for it directly. But 
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very common men have done that. Indeed, 
many of a low type have done it. We now 
have sense enough not to call these great men. 
Careful analysis will show, in every case, that 
it requires service for one's fellow-men to con- 
stitute a great man. The man who is working 
for greatness alone is the man who ordinarily 
never achieves it. 



October Twenty -fifth 




ELIGION can be not only not di- 
vorced from life, but it cannot be 
divorced from every thought and 
act and detail of every day, hour, 
and moment of life. It is the guiding prin- 
ciple, the guiding, permeating force, and not 
something that can ever be apart from every- 
day life. 



October Twenty-sixth 

HERE is an especial duty at middle 
age to sow the right seed thoughts 
that will make the latter period of 
life as beautiful and as attractive 
as it can be made. To keep always a youth- 
ful interest in all things of life, and an in- 
terest in all things in the lives of all about us, 
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leads in an easy and natural manner to that 
delightful old age that should be the ambition 
and the pride of all who are permitted to pass 
into it. 

When we examine the matter carefully, and 
when we realize that all knowledge and 
growth and development and character are 
cumulative, it would seem that the latter years 
of life should be the most joyous, and valu- 
able, and happy of all. Its joys and its val- 
ued possessions come undoubtedly through 
living always in the upper strata of one's 
being. Browning was unquestionably the 
prophet when he wrote: 

"Grow old along with me! 

The best is yet to be, 
The last of life for which the first was made; 

Our times are in his hand 

Who saith, 'A whole I planned, 
Youth shows but half; trust God; see all, nor be 
afraid!'" 



October Twenty -seventh 

win the best in life it is necessary 
that we have a definite type and 
manner of thought. It is neces- 
sary that we have some more or 
less definite plan, and some manner of equip- 
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ment for its accomplishment. It isn't neces- 
sary that we have all the details of the plan, 
nor even all the details of equipment, in order 
to make the start — some, many of these can 
be gained along the way if we are in earnest. 




October Twenty-eighth 

OME one has said, "There are two 
things in this life for which we are 
never fully prepared, and they are 
twins." But the philosophical 
mother or father, or aunt, or grandmother, is 
the one who is happy even when they come. 
"Cheerfulness and content," said Dickens, 
"are great beautifiers and are great preservers 
of youthful looks." It is true in a double 
sense that twins, as by and by they grow to 
the state of manhood or womanhood, will take 
a special pride in parents that if not always 
the pink of perfection in beauty, are noted 
for their youthful looks. 




October Twenty -ninth 

HEN the middle life is reached, 
care must be taken that we do not 
allow the affairs of life and our 
own particular field of activity, 

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with its many times complex relationships, 
ever to divorce us from living in the Kingdom 
of the Mind, and the Realm of the Imagina- 
tion. 

If one has missed the early education, he 
need not be barred, unless perchance he him- 
self so chooses, from that great and magnifi- 
cent company of the world's thinkers and 
writers — companionship and intimacy with 
whom will make a man rich in thought, learn- 
ing, and even in culture. It depends upon 
ourselves entirely whether we have this royal 
companionship or not. 



October Thirtieth 




IFE in no case is purely a bed of 
roses. There will be always the 
daily problems; there will be 
bread to get; or if it is not a bread 
problem, then there will be wisdom necessary, 
and perplexing problems to meet in the wise 
use of one's wealth. There will be disillu- 
sions; there will be suffering; there will be 
death; but the great beauty is that those who 
are in earnest and those who build on the 
great realities of life, for them there will be 
a wisdom that will enable them to meet all 
these things with understanding and power, 
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and always, therefore, with a due compensa- 
tion. 




October Thirty-first 

HE occasional vacation, or trip, or 
travel, or even short absence, in this 
way, contributes always to a greater 
happiness. But we must take the 
spirit of happiness with us ; for unless we do, 
we will find it nowhere in the world, however 
far or varied we may travel in search for it. 
"After all," says Lowell, "the kind of world 
one carries about within one's self is the im- 
portant thing, and the world outside takes all 
its grace, colour and value from that." 




November First 

jENERALLY speaking it is idle for 
one to think that he would be hap- 
pier in some other state or condi- 
tion. It is however true that we 
need changes. We need changes from the 
ordinary duties and routine of life that we 
may get away from the beaten path, or some- 
times, if you please, out of the ruts that we 
are all so likely to get running in. 

It is good for us occasionally to get away 
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from our constant companions, our constant 
friends, from the members of our immediate 
households. It is good for us and it is good 
for them. It whets the dull edge of appetite. 
We come back revived, with fresh and many 
times new interests and aims. We appre- 
ciate them better, and they appreciate us bet- 
ter for these changes. It takes the cobwebs 
from our brains. It takes the kinks from 
our nerves, and many times thereby, from our 
acts. 



November Second 

T is a curious or rather an interest- 
ing thing that the only people whom 
Jesus had anything to say against, 
the only ones whom he ever de- 
nounced, were those who observed the out- 
ward forms of the established religion of his 
time, but "did" their neighbours whenever they 
had the opportunity, some even chronically. 

Those who oppressed, those who took ad- 
vantage, those who were always looking to 
their own personal, social, or financial inter- 
ests and gain alone, he denounced in the most 
scathing terms as hypocrites and vipers, those 
who "bind heavy burdens and grievous to be 
borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but 
they themselves will not move them with one 
-C203> 




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of their fingers. But all their works they do 
for to be seen of men." 

It is very easy and very common for us 
to be either hypocrites or thoroughly self- 
deluded, also in our day. 




November Third 

REPUTATION for strict integrity 
and reliability in business is one 
of the greatest assets that a busi- 
ness man can have. There have 
been innnumerable cases when it has been 
worth more than any amount of capital. The 
business man who has been short-sighted 
enough at some time to have forfeited this 
element, appreciates perhaps more than any 
one else the cost that this forfeiting has been 
to him. 



November Fourth 

E must never get away from the 
fact, even at the risk of repetition, 
that the life is the thing — that to 
fail or to fall down in it is the 
great failure. To fail in it is to fail com- 
pletely, even though we may succeed, and 
even brilliantly, in some contingent or some 
accessory of it. So no man can become ma- 
-C204> 




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rooned in a one-sided development, or do a 
sharp practice, or live a dwarfing, self-cen- 
tred life without definitely contributing to the 
failure of life. 

We can never afford to sacrifice, to chance, 
the future for the temporary or the apparent 
present gain. No man can afford, even for 
his own good, to do a crooked act or take a 
short cut that is dishonest, or dishonourable, 
or questionable. The straight thing pays al- 
ways in the end, in friendship, in business, m 
politics, in every conceivable avenue and 
phase of life. 




November Fifth 

T the bottom of all attainment is 
self-mastery. There is very little 



of any marked quality or that is of 
any lasting nature, that can be ac- 
complished without this underlying founda- 
tion. 



November Sixth 

WEETNESS of nature, simplicity in 

manners and conduct, humility 

without self-abasement, give the 

truly kingly quality to men, the 

queenly to women, the winning to children, 

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whatever the rank or the station may be. The 
life dominated by this characteristic, or rather 
these closely allied characteristics, is a nat- 
ural wellspring of joy to itself and sheds a 
continual benediction upon all who come 
within the scope of its influence. It makes 
for a life of great beauty in itself, and it im- 
parts courage and hope and buoyancy to all 
others. 

November Seventh 

ND why should there be anything 
but simplicity on the part of even 
the greatest? There will be due 
humility in it bye and bye; every- 
thing here will come to naught; and after its 
separation from the body the life will pass 
on into the next state, taking with it only, by 
way of desirable possessions, all attainment 
made through the unfoldment of its higher 
self, all that it has gained by way of self- 
mastery and nobility of character — and of 
these attributes none are more enduring, as 
well as more to be desired, than kindness and 
humility. 

Truly descriptive of the well-balanced man 
are these lines of Lowell: 

"The wisest man could ask no more of fate 
Than to be simple, modest, manly, true, 
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Safe from the many, honoured by the few; 
Nothing to crave in Church or World or State, 
But inwardly in secret to be great." 

The one who has true inward greatness thinks 
little of and cares less for what we term fame. 
For truly, "Fame means nothing to those who 
take an inward view of life, for they see that 
at best it is but the symbol of intrinsic worth." 



November Eighth 

T is an established fact that the 
training of the intellect alone is not 
sufficient. Nothing in this world 
can be truer than that the educa- 
tion of the head, without the training of the 
heart, simply increases one's power for evil, 
while the education of the heart, along with 
the head, increases one's power for good, and 
this, indeed, is the true education. 

Clearly we must begin with the child. The 
lessons learned in childhood are the last to be 
forgotten. Let them be taught that the lower 
animals are God's creatures, as they them- 
selves are, put here by a common Heavenly 
Father, each for its own special purpose, and 
that they have the same right to life and pro- 
tection. Let them be taught that principle 
recognized by all noble-hearted men, that it is 





THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

only a depraved, debased, and cowardly na- 
ture that will injure an inferior, defenceless 
creature, simply because it is in its power to 
do so, and that there is no better, no grander 
test of true bravery and nobility of character 
than one's treatment of the lower animals. 



November Ninth 

CANNOT refrain in this connec- 
tion from quoting the following 
which was sent me by a kind friend 
to our fellow-creatures a few 
days ago: 

"The celebrated Russian novelist, Turgen- 
ieff, tells a most touching incident from his 
own life, which awakened in him sentiments 
that have coloured all his writings with a deep 
and tender feeling. 

"When Turgenieff was a boy of ten his 
father took him out one day bird-shooting. 
As they tramped across the brown stubble, a 
golden pheasant rose with a low whirr from 
the ground at his feet, and, with the joy of a 
sportsman throbbing through his veins, he 
raised his gun and fired, wild with excitement 
when the creature fell fluttering at his side. 
Life was ebbing fast, but the instinct of the 
mother was stronger than death itself, and 
<20%> 



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with a feeble flutter of her wings the mother 
bird reached the nest where her young brood 
were huddled, unconscious of danger. Then, 
with such a look of pleading and reproach 
that his heart stood still at the ruin he had 
wrought, — and never to his dying day did he 
forget the feeling of cruelty and guilt that 
came to him in that moment, — the little brown 
head toppled over, and only the dead body 
of the mother shielded her nestlings. 

' 'Father, father,' he cried, 'what have I 
done?' as he turned his horror-stricken face to 
his father. But not to his father's eye had 
this little tragedy been enacted, and he said: 
'Well done, my son; that was well done for 
your first shot. You will soon be a fine 
sportsman.' 

4 'Never, father; never again shall I de- 
stroy any living creature. If that is sport I 
will have none of it. Life is more beautiful 
than death, and since I cannot give life, I will 
not take it.' " 

And so instead of putting into the hands of 
the child a gun or any other weapon that may 
be instrumental in crippling, torturing, or 
taking the life of even a single animal, I 
would give him the field-glass and the camera, 
and send him out to be a friend to the ani- 
mals, to observe and study their characteris- 
tics, their habits, to learn from them those 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

wonderful lessons that can be learned, and 
thus have his whole nature expand in admira- 
tion and love and care for them, and become 
thereby the truly manly and princely type of 
man, rather than the careless, callous, brutal 
type. 



November Tenth 

LL sin and error, all wrong and in- 
justice, with its attendant suffering 
and loss, is the result of selfishness. 
Selfishness is always the result of 
ignorance — a mind undeveloped or developed 
only in spots. Therefore to aid in bringing 
one to a realization of his higher and better 
self and the laws that operate there, that he 
may act and live continually from that centre, 
is after all the effective and the fundamentally 
commonsense way of aiding in righting the 
wrongs that help in warping, in crippling, the 
happiness and the sweetness that belong in- 
herently to every life. 

When the highest speaks to the highest in an- 
other, sooner or later the response is sure. In 
this way birth is given to ever-widening cir- 
cles of influence that make for the good, the 
honest, the righteous, therefore the happy, in 

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this at times hard and complex, but on the 
whole, good old world of ours. 



November Eleventh 




OW and then there is one so steeped 
in selfishness, so ignorant therefore 
of the prevailing laws of life, that 
it is necessary to take the power of 
oppression or injustice out of his hands, at 
least for the time being; but the springs of 
tenderness, of compassion, of love for the 
right, though sometimes deeply covered or ap- 
parently non-existent, can be made in time to 
burst forth and to overflow by the truly wise, 
so that even such may in time, as has so often 
and so abundantly been the case, become one 
of the noblest, one of the most valuable, of 
earth's sons or daughters. 




November Twelfth 

grow and to keep in person as at- 
tractive as possible should be not 
only every one's pleasure, but 
should be also every one's duty. 



-C211> 




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November Thirteenth 

l 1 was not merely a poetic fancy, but 
the recognition of a fundamental 
fact, as well-known laws of mod- 
ern psychology, mental and spirit- 
ual science are now clearly demonstrating, 
that induced the Prophet to say: "And thine 
ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, 
This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to 
the right hand and when ye turn to the left." 
And again: "The Lord in the midst of thee 
is mighty." And still again: "He that 
dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High 
shall abide under the shadow of the Al- 
mighty." 



November Fourteenth 




E are told by the mariners who sail 
on the Indian Seas, that many times 
they can tell their approach to cer- 
tain islands long before they can 
see them, by the sweet fragrance of the sandal- 
wood that is wafted far out upon the deep. 
Do you not see how it would serve to have such 
a soul playing through such a body that as 
you go here and there a subtle, silent force 
goes out from you that all feel and are influ- 
enced by; so that you carry with you an in- 
-C212> 



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spiration and continually shed a benediction 
wherever you go ; so that your friends and all 
people will say — His coming brings peace and 
joy into our homes, welcome his coming; so 
that as you pass along the street, tired, and 
weary, and even sin-sick men and women will 
feel a certain divine touch that will awaken 
new desires and a new life in them; that will 
make the very horse as you pass him turn his 
head with a strange, half -human, longing 
look? Such are the subtle powers of the hu- 
man soul when it makes itself translucent to 
the Divine. 



November Fifteenth 

OLITICS is something that we can- 
not evade except to the detriment of 
our country and thereby to our 
own detriment. Politics is but an- 




other word for government. And in a sense 
we the individual voter, are the government, 
and unless we make matters of government 
our own concern, there are organizations and 
there are groups of designing men who will 
steal in and get possession for their own selfish 
aggrandizement and gain. This takes some- 
times the form of power, to be traded for 
other power, or concessions; but always if 
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you will trace far enough, eventual money 
gain. Or again it takes the form of graft 
and even direct loot. 

The losses that are sustained through a low- 
ered citizenship, through inefficient service, 
through a general debauchery of public insti- 
tutions, through increased taxation to make 
up for the amounts that are drawn off in graft 
and loot are well nigh incalculable — and for 
the sole reason that you and I, average citi- 
zens, do not take the active personal interest 
in our own matters of government that we 
should take. 

Clericalism, Tammanyism, Bolshevism, 
Syndicalism — and all in the guise of interest 
in the people — get their holds and their profits 
in this way. It is essential that we be locally 
wise and history wise. Any class or section 
or organization that is less than the nation 
itself must be watched and must be made to 
keep its own place, or it becomes a menace to 
the free and larger life of the nation. 

Even in the case of a great national crisis 
a superior patriotism is affected and paraded 
in order that it may camouflage its other and 
real activities. 



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November Sixteenth 

T is only when you and I and all 
average men fully comprehend the 
moral obligation that is contained 
in the phrase, Independence in 
party action, that we will see the power of 
corruption that they now hold slipping from 
their hands. It is when we not only make it 
known by quick and decisive action that we 
will support our own party when its platform 
is essentially the best and when it is con- 
structed for the purpose of being fulfilled and 
not for the pure purpose of deception, in 
whole or in part, and again when its candi- 
dates are the best men that can be named; but 
that we will as quickly support the opposing 
party when platform and candidates in it are 
the better, that we will give birth to a revolu- 
tion of tremendous import in our political and 
social traditions and life. 

Then when we are able to get away from 
the idea that government is something sepa- 
rate and apart from us, but that in a very 
fundamental sense we are government so to 
speak, and when we set about doing for our- 
selves that which we now hand over to others 
to be done for us, and many times illy and 
treacherously done, we will have political in- 

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stitutions of which we and all men will be 
justly and unreservedly proud. 



November Seventeenth 



E can't dwell too continually in the 
lower stories of our being without 
missing the still better things that 
are in the stories above. And 
somehow there is in the very centre of our 
being, so to speak, a something that continu- 
ally beckons us above. 




November Eighteenth 




E need a stock-taking and a mobili- 
zation of our spiritual forces. But 
what, after all, does this mean? 
Search as we may we are brought 
back every time to this same Man of Naza- 
reth, the God-man — Son of Man and Son of 
God. And gathering it into a few brief sen- 
tences it is this: Jesus' great revelation was 
the consciousness of God in the individual 
life, and to this he witnessed in a supreme and 
masterly way, because this he supremely real- 
ized and lived. Faith in him and following 
him does not mean acquiring some particular 
notion of God or some particular belief abou* 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

him himself. It is the living in one's own life 
of this same consciousness of God as one's 
source and Father, and a living in these same 
filial relations with him of love and guidance 
and care that Jesus entered into and continu- 
ously lived. 

When this is done there is no problem and 
no condition in the individual life that it will 
not clarify, mould, and therefore take care 
of; for "m wv5.t€ r9j fvxn *W — d no t 
worry about your life — was the Master's 
clear-cut command. Are we ready for this 
high type of spiritual adventure? Not only 
are we assured of this great and mighty truth 
that the Master revealed and going ahead of 
us lived, that under this supreme guidance we 
need not worry about the things of the life, 
but that under this Divine guidance we need 
not think even of the life itself, if for any 
reason it becomes our duty or our privilege 
to lay it down. Witnessing for truth and 
standing for truth he again preceded us in 
this. 



November Nineteenth 

HEN the day with its fresh begin- 
ning comes we should enter upon 
it without fears or forebodings. 
These will inevitably cripple our 
-C217 3- 





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energies, and thereby cripple or even defeat 
our day. 



November Twentieth 

E no longer admit that Christ is 
present and at work only when a 
minister is expounding the gospel 
or some theological precept or con- 
ducting some ordained observance in the pul- 
pit; or that religion is only when it is labelled 
as such and is within the walls of a church. 
That belonged to the chapter in Christianity 
that is now rapidly closing, a chapter of good 
works and results — but so pitiably below its 
possibilities. So pitiably below because men 
had been taught and without sufficient thought 
accepted the teaching that to be a Christian 
was to hold certain beliefs about the Christ 
that had been formulated by early groups of 
men and that had come down through the 
centuries. 

The chapter that is now opening upon the 
world is the one that puts Christ's own teach- 
ings in the simple, frank, and direct manner 
in which he gave them, to the front. It 
makes life, character, conduct, human concern 
and human service of greater importance than 
mere matters of opinion. It makes eager 
and unremitting work for the establishing of 
-£218> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

the Kingdom of God, the kingdom of right 
relations between men, here on this earth, the 
essential thing. 

It insists that the telling test as to whether 
a man is a Christian is how much of the 
Christ spirit is in evidence in his life — and in 
every phase of his life. Gripped by this 
idea which for a long time the forward-looking 
and therefore the big men in them have been 
striving for, our churches in the main are 
moving forward with a new, a dauntless, and 
a powerful appeal. 



November Twenty -first 

T is primarily among the ignorant 
and illiterate that Bolshevism, an- 
archy, political rings, and every 
agency that attempts through self- 
seeking to sow the seeds of discontent, treach- 
ery, and disloyalty, works to exploit them and 
to herd them for political ends. No man can 
have that respect for himself, or feel that he 
has the respect due him from others as an 
honest and diligent worker, whatever his line 
of work, who is handicapped by the lack of 
an ordinary education. 

The heart of the American nation is sound. 
Through universal free public education it 
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THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

must be on the alert and be able to see through 
Bourbonism and understand its methods on 
the one hand, and Bolshevism on the other; 
and be determined through intelligent action 
to see that American soil is made uncongenial 
to both. 



November Twenty -second 




UR time needs again more the 
prophet and less the priest. It 
needs the God-impelled life and 
voice of the prophet with his face 
to the future, both God-ward and man-ward, 
burning with an undivided devotion to truth 
and righteousness. It needs less the priest, too 
often with his back to the future and too often 
the pliant tool of the organization whose chief 
concern is, and ever has been, the preserva- 
tion of itself under the ostensible purpose of 
the preservation of the truth once delivered, 
the same that Jesus with his keen powers of 
penetration saw killed the Spirit as a high 
moral guide and as an inspirer to high and 
unself -centred endeavour, and that he char- 
acterized with such scathing scorn. There are 
splendid exceptions; but this is the rule now 
even as it was in his day. 

The prophet is concerned with truth, not 
a system; with righteousness, not custom; 
-C220:}- 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

with justice, not expediency. Is there a man 
who would dare say that if Christianity — the 
Christianity of the Christ — had been actually 
in vogue, in practice in all the countries of 
Christendom during the last fifty years, dur- 
ing the last twenty-five years, that this colos- 
sal and gruesome war would ever have come 
about? No clear- thinking and honest man 
would or could say that it would. 

We need again the voice of the prophet, 
clear-seeing, high-purposed, and unafraid. 
We need again the touch of the prophet's hand 
to lead us back to those simple fundamental 
teachings of the Christ of Nazareth, that are 
life-giving to the individual, and that are 
world-saving. 



November Twenty-third 

ACH morning is a fresh beginning in 
life. In a sense there is no past, 
no future. Wise is he who takes 
today and lives it, and tomorrow 
when it comes — but not before it comes. 
The past is of value only by way of the les- 
sons it has brought us. There should be no 
regrets or crippled energies that result from 
such. We have stumbled — all have stumbled. 
The wise one is he who does not allow him- 

-C22i> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

self to be discouraged in the face of even 
innumerable stumblings. Sometimes it is 
through these that we learn the most. 

The wise one is he who when he stumbles, 
and falls — even flat — gives time enough to 
recognize the cause, who quickly learns his 
lesson, and who then picks himself up and 
goes on, without wasting even a moment in 
regret. In this way his very stumblings and 
fallings become an asset. 



November Twenty-fourth 

HE one who takes sufficient time in 
the quiet mentally to form his 
ideals, sufficient time to make and 
to keep continually his conscious 
connection with the Infinite, with the Divine 
life and forces, is the one who is best adapted 
to the strenuous life. He it is who can go 
out and deal with sagacity and power with 
whatever issues may arise in the affairs of 
every-day life. He it is who is building not 
for the years, but for the centuries; not for 
time, but for the eternities. And he can go 
out knowing not whither he goes, knowing that 
the Divine life within him will never fail him, 
but will lead him on until he beholds the 
Father face to face. 

<222> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

He is building for the centuries because 
only that which is the highest, the truest, the 
noblest, and best will abide the test of the 
centuries. He is building for eternity be- 
cause when the transition we call death takes 
place, life, character, self-mastery, divine 
self-realization, — the only things that the soul 
when stripped of everything else takes with 
it, — he has in abundance. In life, or when 
the time of the transition to another form of 
life comes, he is never afraid, never fearful, 
because he knows and realizes that behind 
him, within him, beyond him, is the Infinite 
wisdom and love; and in this he is eternally 
centred, and from it he can never be separated. 
With Whittier he sings : 

"I know not where His islands lift 

Their fronded palms in air; 
I only know I cannot drift 

Beyond His love and care." 



November Twenty-fifth 

AITH is nothing more nor less than 

the operation of the thought forces 

in the form of an earnest desire, 

coupled with expectation as to its 

fulfilment. And in the degree that faith, the 

earnest desire thus sent out, is continually 

-C223:}- 





THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

held to and watered by firm expectation, in 
just that degree does it either draw to itself, 
or does it change from the unseen into the 
visible, from the spiritual into the material, 
that for which it is sent. 



November Twenty-sixth 

ESUS did not teach a system — he 
taught no system at all — or any- 
thing that can be legitimately trans- 
formed into a system that would 
do violence to men's — good men's reason. 

Personally I believe, and I stand squarely 
upon the belief, that the great life-moulding 
principles and truths that Jesus so unerringly 
perceived, lived, and taught — of man's won- 
derful access to God the Father, and of the 
mystic force that relates and unites them, and 
of the transforming and redeeming, and more, 
the building power of love, are so much 
greater and so infinitely more valuable than 
the ecclesiastical dogmas that grew up about 
his person, that I rejoice to see the falling 
away of the latter whereby the ground is be- 
ing made less encumbered and made ready 
for the essential truths that will yet redeem 
men and women to their higher, diviner selves, 
and through them will yet redeem the world. 
< 224 > 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

Jesus did not teach that God is a monster, 
and therefore its concomitant, the inherent 
sinfulness and degradation of man and of 
human nature. He perceived unerringly, he 
lived and he taught — Our Father in Heaven, 
the unity of the human spirit with the Divine. 
It was therefore the Divinity of Man, made ac- 
tual in the degree that man lifts his mind and 
his spirit up to the Divine and lives in this 
realization — with all the transcendent and 
transforming insights and powers and the en- 
folding peace that will follow, and follow in- 
evitably, in its train. 



November Twenty-seventh 

N our mental lives we can either 
keep hold of the rudder and so de- 
termine exactly what course we 
take, what points we touch, or we 
can fail to do this, and failing, we drift, and 
are blown hither and thither by every passing 
breeze. 





November Twenty-eighth 

know God whom the Christ re- 
vealed, and to know him in the 
manner as by him revealed, is to 
become happy and strong in the 

-C225> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

conscious actualizing of the Divine leadings 
and forces and powers that are potential 
within us, but that the Christ revealed and ex- 
plicitly enjoined upon us to realize and use. 
And so intelligent men and women of today 
are finding that to attempt to encompass the 
life, the teachings, and therefore the religion 
of the Christ, in cut and dried formulas, to 
weave them into a crown and to press them 
upon men's brows, is the very antithesis of 
the Christ. 

They now see all too clearly that through 
this method a Christianity primarily of nega- 
tion was made to take the place of a religion 
of faith and courage and of joyous conquer- 
ing power — a religion of wholeness and of 
abounding health of mind, body, and spirit. 



November Twenty-ninth 

N his great work: "The Education 
of Man," Friedrich Froebel has 
said: "It is the destiny and life- 
work of all things to unfold their 
essence, hence their divine being, and, there- 
fore, the Divine Unity itself — to reveal God 
in their external and transient being. It is 
the special destiny and life-work of man, as 
an intelligent and rational being, to become 
-C 226 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

fully, vividly, and clearly conscious of his 
essence, of the divine effluence in him, and, 
therefore, of God. ... By education, then, 
the divine essence of man should be unfolded, 
brought out, lifted into consciousness, and 
man himself raised into free, conscious obedi- 
ence to the divine principle that lives in him, 
and to a free representation of this principle 
in his life." 




November Thirtieth 

AM thine own Spirit," are the 
words that the Infinite Intelligence 
by means of the inner voice is con- 
tinually speaking to every human 
soul. "And God said, Let us make man in 
our image, after our likeness; and let them 
have dominion." Man therefore is essen- 
tially Divine, part and parcel of the Infinite 
Life, and so essentially good, and with the 
divine attributes and powers potential within 
him. 

It is ours to live in this consciousness after 
we once realize it, and thus to allow the God 
consciousness to fill us and to flow through 
us in all phases of our human existence. 



<221> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




December First 

T was the highly illumined German 
philosopher, Fichte, who said: 
"God alone is, and nothing besides 
him — a principle which, it seems 
to me, may be easily comprehended, and 
which is the indispensable condition of all re- 
ligious insight. ... An insight into the ab- 
solute unity of the Human Existence with the 
Divine is certainly the profoundest Knowl- 
edge that man can attain." 




December Second 

T this present time the spirit of the 
Christ is moving in a wonderful 
manner in the minds and hearts of 
men everywhere. Jesus is coming 
to his own again, and the great laity of the 
world is having its part, in conjunction with 
the forward-looking men in all our churches, 
in the great redeeming process that is now in 
progress. 

We are in the midst, whether we are yet 
fully able to grasp it or not, of another great 
Reformation, no less real, no less gigantic 
than any that has gone before, and more tre- 
mendously far-reaching. It is but the fore- 
runner of a great spiritual — Christian, if you 
-C228> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

please — Renaissance, that will resemble more 
than anything else the times of the Early 
Christianity — but with a vastly enlarged vision 
and knowledge and influence. 



December Third 

men and women who can look 
bigly and kindly at many of the 
things in our organized Christian- 
ity of today, things that they feel 
are keeping the truer and the more vital and 
the more wholesome portions of the Chris- 
tianity of the Christ away from the people, 
are recognizing them as pertaining to the old 
and now creaking stairway up which we have 
slowly climbed. 

They are, on the other hand however, recog- 
nizing that it is but well and healthy, indeed 
essential, for all men — in church and out of 
church — to become acquainted with early be- 
ginnings, with pre-mediaeval tamperings and 
speculations and teachings about the Christ, 
which remain essentially dominant to this 
day, in order that the far more valuable thing, 
the teachings and the gospel of the Christ, 
may again gain the ascendancy, and do for 
hungering and thirsting men what the Christ 
so explicitly said they would do. 
-C229> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

December Fourth 

OWHERE can we find from Jesus' 
own teachings that he claimed for 
himself anything that he claimed 
not for all mankind. Nor could 
it be otherwise if God is God and Law is Law. 

There is, of course, a difference — but it is 
a difference in capacity of realization, and 
as to how fully one in his inner consciousness 
and in the whole outward expression of his 
life, is capable of trusting, and through his 
love and his will, is ready to trust himself to 
the Divine Law. Completely and with all hu- 
mility, Jesus did this. A sense of depend- 
ence upon the Divine guidance and power 
gives that appropriate humility which is al- 
ways combined in those of real wisdom and 
power. It is a part of their life; it is indeed 
a part of their power. 

In all his thought and in all his acts Jesus 
gave allegiance and acknowledgment to this 
guidance and power — Of myself I can do 
nothing; it is the Father that worketh in me. 

December Fifth 

HRICE blessed are they who are 

pleasant to live with. They are 

a blessing to themselves, to those 

with whom they live, and to the 

-C230> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

world at large. Along this line a thoughtful 
writer has said most truly: "There is a 
beautiful and an ugly way in which to say al- 
most everything, and happiness depends upon 
which way we take. You can upset a person 
for a whole day by the harsh way in which 
you may call him in the morning, or you may 
give him a beautiful start by the cheeriness 
of your greeting. So not only in the words 
but in all the little, common courtesies and 
duties of life, think of the beautiful way of 
doing each." 



December Sixth 




ONTEMPLATION to be followed 
by activity and creative effort, 
brings a balance to life that would 
otherwise be one-sided and pro- 
ductive of one-sided results, which always 
means loss in some form. 



December Seventh 

HE life invariably follows the 

thought. In the last analysis it is 

cause and effect — the thoughts and 

the emotions are the silent, subtle, 

but all powerful causes, of the prevailing 

-C231> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

characteristics and conditions of any life. 
The thoughts and the emotions therefore de- 
termine the life. They stamp its present and 
they will inevitably determine its future. 

There are people by the thousands today 
who are awakening to this important fact, 
who are grasping and utilizing the laws of 
scientific mind and body building, and who 
through the agency of these laws are stepping 
so to speak into a new world. They are ex- 
changing fears and forebodings with their 
neutralizing and destructive influences, for 
faith and hope and courage, with their 
straight-to-the-mark, get-some-where influ- 
ences. They are exchanging disease for bod- 
ily health and strength and vigour. They are 
exchanging poverty with its attendant limita- 
tions for plenty and abundance. 

They are finding that life when we get at 
it from the right side, is something intensely 
interesting in all its details; that it is some- 
thing, every day of which is to be lived and 
enjoyed, and not something merely to get 
through with. They by the renewing of their 
minds and thereby their lives, are becoming 
definite, distinctive forces in the world. 



-C232> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

December Eighth 

HEN Elijah was on the mountain it 
was after the various physical com- 
motions and manifestations that he 
heard the "still, small voice," the 
voice of his own soul, through which the In- 
finite God was speaking. If we will but fol- 
low this voice of intuition, it will speak ever 
more clearly and more plainly, until by and 
by it will be absolute and unerring in its guid- 
ance. The great trouble with us is that we 
do not listen to and do not follow this voice 
within our own souls, and so we become as a 
house divided against itself. We are pulled 
this way and that, and we are never certain 
of anything. 

In order for the highest wisdom and in- 
sight we must have absolute confidence in the 
Divine guiding us, but not through the channel 
of some one else. 



December Ninth 

HE very purpose of Christianity is 
changing — it is changing from an 
agency whose reason for being and 
whose purpose has been primarily 
to save men's souls from hell, real or mythical 
-C233> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

or both, to an agency whose reason for being 
and whose purpose is to inspire and to direct 
men so that their lives do not here get into a 
state of hell. In other words, it is no longer 
regarded by thinking and knowing men and 
women as a mere creeping-through agency, but 
as a constructive and building force in their 
daily lives. 

They are also firm in their conviction, 
through their knowledge of the workings of 
the elemental law of Cause and Effect, that 
the one who knows God here and gives evi- 
dence that he knows Him by an upright, 
manly, loving, serviceable mode of living, will 
be known by God both here and hereafter. 

They are also sustained in their conviction 
because this is the essential teaching of the 
Christ, who has led them into the knowledge 
of the Way, and who traversed it before he 
taught it. With such a one, receiving di- 
rectly from the Master a knowledge of the 
great spiritual verities of life, and whose con- 
stant prayer is — Uphold me, God, by Thy 
free Spirit— "the hitting of a sawdust trail" 
becomes a most immaterial matter. 



r -c 234 y 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




December Tenth 

|REAT and rapidly-increasing num- 
bers in our own and in other coun- 
tries, who are through with the old 
ecclesiasticism of authority with 
its dogmas of the inherent sinfulness and 
degradation of man, whose soul it is the busi- 
ness of religion to save by some un-under- 
stood atoning force, with its emphasis on the 
negatives of life, which induce always fear 
and lack of faith and therefore crippled en- 
ergies for mind, body, and spirit, are realiz- 
ing and realizing keenly the great loss they 
have sustained through the old emphasis in 
religion. 

They are now finding that to know God, 
whom the Christ revealed, gives a religion of 
a joyous, conquering power by virtue of the 
Divine powers and forces, eternally latent 
within, springing forward into a useful and 
ever-growing activity. 



December Eleventh 




ULL, rich, and abounding health is 
the normal and the natural condi- 
tion of life. Anything else is an 
abnormal condition, and abnormal 
conditions as a rule come through perversions. 
-C235> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

God never created sickness, suffering, and dis- 
ease; they are man's own creations. They 
come through his violating the laws under 
which he lives. 



December Twelfth 

T is the material that is the transient, 
the temporary; and the mental and 
spiritual that is the real and the 
eternal. We should not become 
slaves to habit. The material alone can 
never bring happiness — much less satisfac- 
tion. These lie deeper. That conversation 
between Jesus and the rich young man is full 
of significance for us all, especially in this 
ambitious, striving, restless age. 

Abundance of life is determined not alone 
by one's material possessions, but primarily 
by one's riches of mind and spirit. A world 
of truth is contained in these words : "Life is 
what we are alive to. It is not a length, but 
breadth. To be alive only to appetite, pleas- 
ure, mere luxury or idleness, pride or money- 
making, and not to goodness and kindness, 
purity and love, history, poetry, and music, 
flowers, God and eternal hopes, is to be all 
but dead." 

Why be so eager to gain possession of the 
-C 236 > 



THROUGH .THE SUNLIT YEAR 

hundred thousand or the half-million acres, 
of so many millions of dollars? Soon, and it 
may be before you realize it, all must be left. 
It is as if a man made it his ambition to ac- 
cumulate a thousand or a hundred thousand 
automobiles. All soon will become junk. 
But so it is with all material things beyond 
what we can actually and profitably use for 
our good and the good of others — and that we 
actually do so use. 




December Thirteenth 

N true growth and development there 
is never any giving up: for what 
we gain is always of far greater 
value even for real enjoyment than 



that which we leave. 



December Fourteenth 

MAN can eat just so many meals 
during the year or during life. If 
he tries to eat more he suffers 
thereby. He can wear only so 
many suits of clothing; if he tries to wear 
more, he merely wears himself out taking off 
and putting on. 

Again it is as Jesus said: "For what shall 
-C237> 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

it profit a man, if he gain the whole world and 
lose his own life?" And right there is the 
crux of the whole matter. All the time spent 
in accumulating these things beyond the rea- 
sonable amount, is so much taken from the 
life — from the things of the mind and the 
spirit. It is in the development and the pur- 
suit of these that all true satisfaction lies. 
Elemental law has so decreed. 

We have made wonderful progress, or 
rather have developed wonderful skill in con- 
nection with things. We need now to go back 
and catch up the thread and develop like skill 
in making the life. 



December Fifteenth 

T is the threefold life and develop- 
ment that is wanted, — physical, 
mental, spiritual. This gives the 
rounded life, and he or she who 
fails in any one comes short of the perfect 
whole. The physical has its uses just the 
same and is just as important as the others. 
The great secret of the highly successful life 
is, however, to infuse the mental and the 
physical with the spiritual ; in other words, to 
spiritualize all, and so raise all to the highest 
possibilities and powers. 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

It is the all-round, fully developed we 
want, — not the ethereal, pale-blooded man and 
woman, but the man and woman of flesh and 
blood, for action and service here and now, — 
the man and woman strong and powerful, 
with all the faculties and functions fully un- 
folded and used, all in a royal and bounding 
condition, but all rightly subordinated. The 
man and the woman of this kind, with the 
imperial hand of mastery upon all, — stand- 
ing, moving thus like a king, nay, like a very 
God, — such is the man and such is the woman 
of power. Such is the ideal life; anything 
else is one-sided. 




December Sixteenth 

UBTLE and powerful are the influ- 
ences of the mind in the building 
and rebuilding of the body. As 
we understand them better it may 
become the custom for people to look forward 
with pleasure to the teens of their second 
century. 



'< 239 > 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

December Seventeenth 

HOUGHT needs direction to be ef- 
fective, and upon this effective re- 
sults depend as much as upon the 
force itself. This brings us to the 
will. Will is not, as is so often thought, a 
force in itself; will is the directing power. 
Thought is the force. Will gives direction. 
Thought scattered gives the weak, the uncer- 
tain, the vacillating, the aspiring, but the 
never-doing, the I-would-like-to, but the get- 
no-where, the attain-to-nothing man or woman. 
Thought steadily directed by the will gives 
the strong, the firm, the never-yielding, the 
never-know-defeat man or woman, the man 
or woman who uses the very difficulties and 
hindrances that would dishearten the ordinary 
person, as stones with which he paves a way 
over which he triumphantly walks, who, by 
the very force he carries with him, so neutral- 
izes and transmutes the very obstacles that 
would bar his way that they fall before him, 
and in turn aid him on his way; the man or 
woman who, like the eagle, uses the very 
contrary wind that would thwart his flight, 
that would turn him and carry him in the op- 
posite direction, as the very agency upon 
which he mounts and mounts and mounts, 
until actually lost to the human eye, and 

-C240> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

which, in addition to thus aiding him, brings 
to him an ever fuller realization of his own 
powers, or in other words, an ever greater 
power. 



CJL 



December Eighteenth 

AM well aware of the fact that the 
mere accumulation of wealth is 
not, except in very rare cases, the 
controlling motive in the lives of 
our wealthy men of affairs. It is rather the 
joy and the satisfaction of achievement. But 
nevertheless it is possible, as has so often 
proved, to get so much into a habit and 
thereby into a rut, that one becomes a victim 
of habit; and the life with all its superb possi- 
bilities of human service, and therefore of true 
greatness, becomes side-tracked and abortive. 
There are so many different lines of ac- 
tivity for human betterment for children, for 
men and women, that those of great executive 
and financial ability have wonderful oppor- 
tunities. 



< 241 y 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

December Nineteenth 

]F you would find the highest, the 
fullest, and the richest life that not 
only this world but that any world 
5i can know, then do away with the 
sense of the separateness of your life from 
the life of God. 





December Twentieth 

ARMER, tilling your soil, gathering 
your crops, caring for your herds; 
you are helping feed the world. 
There is nothing more important. 



"Who digs a well, or plants a seed, 
A sacred pact he keeps with sun and sod; 
With these he helps refresh and feed 
The world, and enters partnership with 
God." 

If you do not allow yourself to become a 
slave to your work, and if you co-operate 
within the house and the home so that your 
wife and your daughters do not become slaves 
or near-slaves, what an opportunity is yours 
of high thinking and noble living ! The more 
intelligent you become, the better read, the 
greater the interest you take in community 
and public affairs, the more effectively you 
-C242> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

become what in reality and jointly you are — 
the backbone of this and of every nation. 




December Twenty-first 

EACHER, poet, dramatist, carpen- 
ter, ironworker, clerk, college head, 
Mayor, Governor, President, Ruler 
— the effectiveness of your work 
and the satisfaction in your work will be de- 
termined by the way in which you relate your 
thought and your work to the Divine plan, 
and co-ordinate your every activity in refer- 
ence to the highest welfare of the greater 
whole. 



December Twenty -second 




HIS growing sense of personal re- 
sponsibility, and still better, of per- 
sonal interest, this giving of one's 
abilities and one's time, in addi- 
tion to ones means, is the beginning of the 
fulfilment of what I have long thought: 
namely, the great gain that will accrue to 
numberless communities and to the nation, 
when men of great means, men of great busi- 
ness and executive ability, give of their time 
and their abilities for the accomplishment of 
-C243> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

those things for the public welfare that other- 
wise would remain undone, or that would re- 
main unduly delayed. 

What a gain will result also to those who 
so do in the joy and satisfaction resulting 
from this higher type of accomplishment hal- 
lowed by the undying element of human 
service ! 

You keep silent too much. "Have great 
leaders, and the rest will follow," said Whit- 
man. The gift of your abilities while you 
live would be of priceless worth for the es- 
tablishing and the maintenance of a fairer, a 
healthier, and a sweeter life in your commun- 
ity, your city, your country. 



December Twenty-third 

REATNESS comes always through 
human service. As there is no 
such thing as finding happiness by 
searching for it directly, so there 
is no such thing as achieving greatness by 
seeking it directly. 

It comes not primarily through brilliant 
intellect, great talents, but primarily through 
the heart. It is determined by the way that 
brilliant intellect, great talents are used. It 
is accorded not to those who seek it directly. 
-C244> 





THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

By an indirect law it is accorded to those who, 
forgetting self, give and thereby lose their 
lives in human service. 



December Twenty -fourth 

E are all continually giving out in- 
fluences similar to those that are 
playing in our own lives. We do 
this in the same way that each 
flower emits its own peculiar odour. The 
rose breathes out its fragrance upon the air 
and all who come near it are refreshed and 
inspired by this emanation from the soul of 
the rose. A poisonous weed sends out its ob- 
noxious odour; it is neither refreshing nor in- 
spiring in its effects, and if one remain near 
it long he may be so unpleasantly affected as 
to be made even ill by it. 

The higher the life the more inspiring and 
helpful are the emanations that it is continu- 
ally sending out. The lower the life the more 
harmful is the influence it continually sends 
out to all who come in contact with it. Each 
one is continually radiating an atmosphere of 
one kind or the other. 



-C245:}- 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

December Twenty-fifth 

EAR and worry have the effect of 
closing up the channels of the body, 
so that the life forces flow in a slow 
and sluggish manner. Hope and 
tranquillity open the channels of the body, so 
that the life forces go bounding through it in 
such a way that disease can rarely get a foot- 
hold. 




December Twenty-sixth 




LL things, good in themselves, are 
for use and enjoyment; but all 
things must be rightly used in or- 
der that there may be full and last- 
ing enjoyment. A law written into the very 
fibre of human life, so to speak, is to the ef- 
fect that excesses, the abuse of anything good 
in itself, will end disastrously, so that one's 
pleasures and enjoyments will have to be gath- 
ered up for repairs, or perchance his shat- 
tered mind or body also, and in case of the 
latter then the former will have to bide their 
time or wait indefinitely for their resumption. 
Look where we will, in or out and around 
us, we will find that it is the middle ground — 
neither poverty nor excessive riches, good 
wholesome use without license, a turning into 
-C246> 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

the by-ways along the main road where inno- 
cent and healthy God-sent and God-intended 
pleasures and enjoyments are to be found; 
but never getting far enough away to lose 
sight of the road itself. The middle ground 
it is that the wise man or woman plants foot 
upon. 



December Twenty -seventh 




OVE it is that brings order out of 
chaos, that becomes the solvent of 
the riddle of life, and however cyn- 
ical, skeptical, or practical we may 
think at times we may be, a little quiet clear- 
cut thought will bring us each time back to 
the truth that it is the essential force that leads 
away from the tooth and the claw of the 
jungle, that lifts life up from and above the 
clod. 

Love is the world's balance-wheel; and as 
the warming and ennobling element of sym- 
pathy, care and consideration radiates from 
it, increasing one's sense of mutuality, which 
in turn leads to fellowship, co-operation, 
brotherhood, a holy and diviner conception 
and purpose of life is born, that makes human 
life more as it should be, as it must be — as it 
will be. 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 




December Twenty-eighth 

LOVE to feel that when one makes 

glad the heart of any man, woman, 

child, or animal, he makes glad 

the heart of God — and I somehow 

feel that it is true. 

As our household fires radiate their genial 
warmth, and make more joyous and more liv- 
able the lot of all within the household walls, 
so life in its larger scope and in all its human 
relations, becomes more genial and more liv- 
able and reveals more abundantly the deeper 
riches of its diviner nature, as it is made more 
open and more obedient to the higher powers 
of mind and spirit. 




December Twenty-ninth 

you know that incident in connec- 
tion with the little Scottish girl? 
She was trudging along, carrying 
as best she could a boy younger, but 
it seemed almost as big as she herself, when 
one remarked to her how heavy he must be 
for her to carry, when instantly came the re- 
ply: "He's na heavy. He's mi brither." 
Simple is the incident; but there is in it a 
truth so fundamental that pondering upon it, 
it is enough to make many a man, to whom 



THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

dogma or creed make no appeal, a Christian 
— and a mighty engine for good in the world. 
And more — there is in it a truth so funda- 
mental and so fraught with potency and with 
power, that its wider recognition and pro- 
jection into all human relations would recon- 
struct a world. 



December Thirtieth 

ND again, each morning is a fresh 
beginning. The way we meet our 
problems and do our work today 
determines all — and then tomorrow 
when it comes, but not before it comes. This 
is really the secret of all successful living. 

And as the days and the years speed on- 
ward, abundant helps will spring up all along 
the way to meet whatever conditions or prob- 
lems arise. They will be waiting, and ready 
to help us to meet them with wisdom and with 
power, and to get from them the best there is 
in them. 

And when the summons comes to join the 
"innumerable company," it will find us 
ready. Joyfully we will slip out of the old 
coat, and eagerly put on the new. We will 
not be afraid or even reluctant, realizing that 
we are now living in God's life, and that there 




THROUGH THE SUNLIT YEAR 

we shall live forever. We will therefore ex- 
tend a welcoming hand to the messenger, 
knowing that he can bring us only good. We 
will go even with joy, expecting that Sweden- 
borg was right, when he taught that those who 
have been nearest in spirit and therefore dear- 
est to us here, are the divinely appointed ones 
to greet and to care for us and to instruct us, 
when we pass into the other phase of life. 



December Thirty-first 

IN BRIEF— 

be honest, to be fearless, to be 
just, joyous, kind. This will make 
our part in life's great and as yet 
not fully understood play one of 
greatest glory, and we need then stand in fear 
of nothing — life nor death; for death is life. 
Or rather perchance, it is the quick transition 
to life in another form; the putting off of the 
old coat and the putting on of the new: a 
passing not from light to darkness, but from 
light to light according as we have lived here; 
a taking up of life in another form where we 
leave it off here; a part in life not to be 
shunned or dreaded or feared, but to be wel- 
comed with a glad and ready smile when it 
comes in its own good way and time. 




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